The Suggestion Box

[Todlichebujoku]

Valkolic, the thread's purpose is to bring up suggestions, not to complain. If you had a suggestion in that anecdotal mire, you should separate them and make them clear so the mods can see them.

My suggestion is really just to be more specific on things- why exactly is X thread locked (if it's not textbook spamming or flaming, then how does it arrive at that point), how exactly is Y rule defined?

It would also be a heck of a lot better if the mods avoided potentially abrasive language when dealing with players, as it tends to antagonize players and give the mods a bad image.

[Vakolic]

My complaints are suggestions. If I'm complaining about it, it's pretty obvious that I want it to stop.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

Your remarks in this thread and others are a pretty powerful indicator to the contrary.

Question: If we went with your suggestion and replaced the entire mod team, who would be mods in the interim? How would actual moderation of the forums be dealt with?

We organize a shadow crew now, keeping it up to date as people come and go, so that we have a slate ready to go in immediately once the revolution comes.

[Sneaky Bastards]

Question: If we went with your suggestion and replaced the entire mod team, who would be mods in the interim? How would actual moderation of the forums be dealt with?

We organize a shadow crew now, keeping it up to date as people come and go, so that we have a slate ready to go in immediately once the revolution comes.

A shadow crew made up of who? How are they chosen? What are their qualifications? How do we know they're going to moderate according to the rules laid out by Max and not carry out their own little agenda or that of their friends?

[Shaggai]

Question: If we went with your suggestion and replaced the entire mod team, who would be mods in the interim? How would actual moderation of the forums be dealt with?

We organize a shadow crew now, keeping it up to date as people come and go, so that we have a slate ready to go in immediately once the revolution comes.

So how do we ensure that they will be good mods? How do we choose them? How can we be sure that they will moderate according to the rules and Max Barry's wishes as opposed to following their own agenda and being entirely partial towards their friends?

[Vakolic]

We organize a shadow crew now, keeping it up to date as people come and go, so that we have a slate ready to go in immediately once the revolution comes.

A shadow crew made up of who? How are they chosen? What are their qualifications? How do we know they're going to moderate according to the rules laid out by Max and not carry out their own little agenda or that of their friends?

I'd love a democratic mod team, but Max hates democracy and has made it perfectly clear that it wouldn't happen. Largely because a lot of the people he thinks would make excellent moderators would be out of a job.

I do think a good idea would be to give us a shortlist of candidates that Max has vetted, so we can at least pick a particular subforum, and someone we think has an open enough mind.

[Sneaky Bastards]

A shadow crew made up of who? How are they chosen? What are their qualifications? How do we know they're going to moderate according to the rules laid out by Max and not carry out their own little agenda or that of their friends?

I'd love a democratic mod team, but Max hates democracy and has made it perfectly clear that it wouldn't happen. Largely because a lot of the people he thinks would make excellent moderators would be out of a job.

I do think a good idea would be to give us a shortlist of candidates that Max has vetted, so we can at least pick a particular subforum, and someone we think has an open enough mind.

Its not about hating democracy. Its about it not being able to work at all on here. The election process wouldn't be about the ability of the mod candidates abilities to moderate and enforce the rules without bias. It would be a popularity contest, it would be about how many and how loudly their friends scream for them to be elected mod, and those friends would likely expect their particular candidate to be sympathetic to whatever agenda they may have. You wouldn't have an unbiased staff and the whole election process would have to start over again once they got sacked for that shit. You wouldn't have an effective staff, if any.

So for everyone crying for the mods to be elected by the playerbase: you can stop. It'll never happen.

[Dakini]

One of the major problems has been the lack of consistency in moderation decisions. It's been claimed that consistency is impossible because the mods are not the same person etc etc, which is total bullshit. Anyone who has ever marked essays has probably heard of a rubric, which is often employed to mark something which is subjective in a fair and consistent manner. I suggest that the mods develop one of these to help guide their rulings.

Another problem is the way flaming is treated here. Somehow flaming is only direct insults, which means that you're technically allowed to tell someone "only a fucking idiot would believe X" (where X is an opinion expressed by a poster in the thread) or "you're acting like a pompous ass" and it's not flaming, but saying "you're a fucking idiot" or "you're a pompous ass" is. This is nonsense because telling someone that only idiots believe something a poster has just expressed is basically directly insulting them, just as saying that someone behaves like a pompous ass is the same as calling them a pompous ass (since really, being pompous or an ass is all in behaviour so...). The point of rules against flaming is typically to avoid creating a hostile posting environment. Comments like "you are acting like a pompous ass" do create a hostile environment, especially when it's coming from a mod.

On that note, the mods should perhaps avoid doing things like accusing posters of trolling (or making "troll-ish posts") without taking action on the poster (e.g. without even handing out an unofficial warning). Moderators have the power to affect others on the forum (e.g. by issuing punishments) so accusing people of rule-breaking when they haven't even done enough to warrant an unofficial warning is totally bullying. It is definitely attempting to shut down discussion without actual grounds and this sort of behaviour should not be tolerated from the moderation staff.

In addition, it would be nice if the moderation team looked into their rules on trolling a bit closer. There have been instances where some players have trolled to great success and others have been told to get over it or somesuch. If a large number of posters are being upset by a poster and this poster persists in the behaviour that is upsetting others, perhaps the moderation staff should not just dismiss the complainants as being hysterical and thin-skinned and consider that there might be some merit to the reports.

Finally, this place could use more mods. I know there was just a recent round of hiring, but there are still reports falling off the first page of Moderation going un-addressed and large periods of time where there are no mods to be found (late night/early morning in North America, for instance... from about 1-2 am until the morning NSG is a free-for-all). When this came up before, we were told that as volunteers, mods cannot be expected to take shifts. So perhaps it is time to start paying some mods. If some mods would agree to shifts when they might not otherwise be active then it seems reasonable to pay them for their efforts. It could also be possible to recruit people from outside NS who know how to help maintain order in online communities (e.g. place a call for applications, take resumes, conduct interviews). I mean, there are ads on this site, it's making money, paying moderators sounds like a small price to pay for repairing a community.

[Dakini]

Also, the best mods seem to take breaks to avoid getting bogged down with bullshit. Perhaps this is something that should be enforced. If the moderation staff were doubled and the mods were only allowed to be mods for three* consecutive months before being forced into a mod-vacation mode (perhaps with orange names) where they can post, but aren't responsible for making any rulings for the next three months*. Then they can return to their duties refreshed and no longer tired of dealing with bullshit.


*or some period of time to be decided later

[Forsher]

The same.

Your remarks in this thread and others are a pretty powerful indicator to the contrary.

People can have different ideas about what is best. It's generally why compromises have to be sought.

It would also be a heck of a lot better if the mods avoided potentially abrasive language when dealing with players, as it tends to antagonize players and give the mods a bad image.

Just generally, abrasive language should be avoided by anyone seeking to have a rational, productive discussion.

I'd love a democratic mod team, but Max hates democracy and has made it perfectly clear that it wouldn't happen. Largely because a lot of the people he thinks would make excellent moderators would be out of a job.

I do think a good idea would be to give us a shortlist of candidates that Max has vetted, so we can at least pick a particular subforum, and someone we think has an open enough mind.

Mods chosen through popularity is a bad idea. Some popular players have no issues with flaming other players, bullying them or otherwise breaking the rules. Sure, you'd get the ones that aren't like this as well, but it wouldn't be worth it.

Getting involved in the discussion of a shortlist, though, yeah that's probably a good idea. Part of the issue seems to be trust and while that does largely stem from (perceived) inconsistency, I think this would help.

With flaming, in addition to the "stop acting like" construction which I maintain is flamebaiting, I think that "implied flames" are something that should be looked like. Essentially, they're more subtle than the "stop acting like" construction.

I'd rather be hella gay than hella ignorant.

Is that an implied flame?

In that case, come to think of it, the comment that led to it was probably flamebaiting or possibly trolling. Which, I guess, really demonstrates why that rule exists and also why reports need to be made.

Broadly speaking, though, the reason why flamebaiting is probably never reported or ruled on is that it has become practically ubiquitous.

[Grenartia]

There've been many suggestions in this thread, many of which I'd like to see implemented, so I won't bother to repeat them. However, I do have a two-part suggestion to combat what we all agree is a major two-part problem: the lack of trust and lack of transparency (which in my observations, seem to feed each other).

I was reading this post earlier, and specifically, Reppy's statement that:

1) Moderator reprimands are seldom done in public. If a moderator makes a mistake, the corrections are typically done in private. If there is evidence of actual malice in the action, odds are pretty good that mod is going to be asked to step down. Nathi's actions in the thread I assume you are ranting about were not deemed to be malicious.

Why aren't staff reprimands done in public?

In addition to public reprimands, I also asked why there isn't a sort of NS version of a Freedom of Information Act with regards to moderation (the person who came closest to suggesting this was Esternial, though his idea was shot down). I've heard it mentioned multiple times from multiple staff members that moderator actions are logged and that these logs are unchangeable and viewable by Max.

Basically, instead of a half-mod, half-poster, PR person as was previously suggested, why not allow people to request the logs relevant to specific incidents/actions to be publicly published (of course, any highly sensitive information (IP addresses, etc.)can and should be removed, just like in RL Freedom of Information Act requests, though it should be kept down to only the absolute minimum) by one of the admins?

We've made no secret of our dissatisfaction with the process, and the staff here has made no secret of their dissatisfaction with our statements of dissatisfaction. I believe that properly implemented, these two steps will significantly help to ease the tensions.

[Bears Armed]

It looks to me as though pretty well all of these complaints are coming from within "the NSG community", rather than from players whose activity within NS is more focussed (in one way or another) on their actual nations.
Because NSG doesn't really have anything to do with the players' actual nations it's arguably less "essential" to NS than any of the other sub-forums except perhaps F7,
So, maybe the best way to resolve this situation for the benefit of NS as a whole wouldn't be to scrap & replace all of the current Mods, it would be to abolish NSG (and F7) -- thus leaving the Mods with a lot more time (and hopefully a better mood, too) for dealing with the rest of the forums -- instead?

Appoint more moderators. Especially from the people who are complaining eloquently in this thread.

In other words, "We're going to keep on shouting until you put some of us in power"? I don't know how other people respond to that approach, but it certainly doesn't incline me to feel that you should be trusted with authority.

[Shaggai]

It looks to me as though pretty well all of these complaints are coming from within "the NSG community", rather than from players whose activity within NS is more focussed (in one way or another) on their actual nations.
Because NSG doesn't really have anything to do with the players' actual nations it's arguably less "essential" to NS than any of the other sub-forums except perhaps F7,
So, maybe the best way to resolve this situation for the benefit of NS as a whole wouldn't be to scrap & replace all of the current Mods, it would be to abolish NSG (and F7) -- thus leaving the Mods with a lot more time (and hopefully a better mood, too) for dealing with the rest of the forums -- instead?

Appoint more moderators. Especially from the people who are complaining eloquently in this thread.

In other words, "We're going to keep on shouting until you put some of us in power"? I don't know how other people respond to that approach, but it certainly doesn't incline me to feel that you should be trusted with authority.

Abolish NSG? Hell no. Do you know how many people would leave? And how annoying it would be for me to find a new forum for that sort of thing?

[Esternial]

A shadow crew made up of who? How are they chosen? What are their qualifications? How do we know they're going to moderate according to the rules laid out by Max and not carry out their own little agenda or that of their friends?

I'd love a democratic mod team, but Max hates democracy and has made it perfectly clear that it wouldn't happen. Largely because a lot of the people he thinks would make excellent moderators would be out of a job.

I do think a good idea would be to give us a shortlist of candidates that Max has vetted, so we can at least pick a particular subforum, and someone we think has an open enough mind.

Anything to support this accusation, or are you just proving my earlier point about hyperbole?

[DesAnges]

I have only one suggestion, as everyone will think of anything else at some point or other, either previously or in the future.

We need some comeback on these threads. The Culture thread was all well and good and the community sourced some excellent ideas - but then you guys all disappeared into the treehouse and thrashed out plans for some ideas and discarded the rest, and a lot of these fell by the wayside because people forgot and weren't informed of what happened.

An update after a month would have been a good shift into a 6-monthly update system. Just a (probably global) thread every so often to keep the entire userbase informed of what is going on with moderation policy and how the site is being kept in check. A brief outline of decisions made and why they were done so. A "State of the Union" if you will.

[Grenartia]

It looks to me as though pretty well all of these complaints are coming from within "the NSG community", rather than from players whose activity within NS is more focussed (in one way or another) on their actual nations.
Because NSG doesn't really have anything to do with the players' actual nations it's arguably less "essential" to NS than any of the other sub-forums except perhaps F7,
So, maybe the best way to resolve this situation for the benefit of NS as a whole wouldn't be to scrap & replace all of the current Mods, it would be to abolish NSG (and F7) -- thus leaving the Mods with a lot more time (and hopefully a better mood, too) for dealing with the rest of the forums -- instead?

In other words, "We're going to keep on shouting until you put some of us in power"? I don't know how other people respond to that approach, but it certainly doesn't incline me to feel that you should be trusted with authority.

Abolish NSG? Hell no. Do you know how many people would leave? And how annoying it would be for me to find a new forum for that sort of thing?

Indeed. To remove NSG would be basically like Micheal Phelps getting his limbs amputated. Its fucking stupid.

To say nothing of the fact that NSG is often used to debate the types of political issues that come up in RPs.

[Shaggai]

There've been many suggestions in this thread, many of which I'd like to see implemented, so I won't bother to repeat them. However, I do have a two-part suggestion to combat what we all agree is a major two-part problem: the lack of trust and lack of transparency (which in my observations, seem to feed each other).

I was reading this post earlier, and specifically, Reppy's statement that:

1) Moderator reprimands are seldom done in public. If a moderator makes a mistake, the corrections are typically done in private. If there is evidence of actual malice in the action, odds are pretty good that mod is going to be asked to step down. Nathi's actions in the thread I assume you are ranting about were not deemed to be malicious.

Why aren't staff reprimands done in public?

In addition to public reprimands, I also asked why there isn't a sort of NS version of a Freedom of Information Act with regards to moderation (the person who came closest to suggesting this was Esternial, though his idea was shot down). I've heard it mentioned multiple times from multiple staff members that moderator actions are logged and that these logs are unchangeable and viewable by Max.

Basically, instead of a half-mod, half-poster, PR person as was previously suggested, why not allow people to request the logs relevant to specific incidents/actions to be publicly published (of course, any highly sensitive information (IP addresses, etc.)can and should be removed, just like in RL Freedom of Information Act requests, though it should be kept down to only the absolute minimum) by one of the admins?

We've made no secret of our dissatisfaction with the process, and the staff here has made no secret of their dissatisfaction with our statements of dissatisfaction. I believe that properly implemented, these two steps will significantly help to ease the tensions.

The FoIA thing sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure how much it would help, but it should be done.

[Esternial]

There've been many suggestions in this thread, many of which I'd like to see implemented, so I won't bother to repeat them. However, I do have a two-part suggestion to combat what we all agree is a major two-part problem: the lack of trust and lack of transparency (which in my observations, seem to feed each other).

I was reading this post earlier, and specifically, Reppy's statement that:



Why aren't staff reprimands done in public?

In addition to public reprimands, I also asked why there isn't a sort of NS version of a Freedom of Information Act with regards to moderation (the person who came closest to suggesting this was Esternial, though his idea was shot down). I've heard it mentioned multiple times from multiple staff members that moderator actions are logged and that these logs are unchangeable and viewable by Max.

Basically, instead of a half-mod, half-poster, PR person as was previously suggested, why not allow people to request the logs relevant to specific incidents/actions to be publicly published (of course, any highly sensitive information (IP addresses, etc.)can and should be removed, just like in RL Freedom of Information Act requests, though it should be kept down to only the absolute minimum) by one of the admins?

We've made no secret of our dissatisfaction with the process, and the staff here has made no secret of their dissatisfaction with our statements of dissatisfaction. I believe that properly implemented, these two steps will significantly help to ease the tensions.

The FoIA thing sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure how much it would help, but it should be done.

It might be a good idea.

Maybe the Mods could just publicly archive old, dated threads from the Modcave. Give them a sticky to boot in order to separate them from the rest.

This would deal with NERV's objection to disclosing sensitive information and make the training of a pseudo-Mod spokesperson unnecessary.

I have only one suggestion, as everyone will think of anything else at some point or other, either previously or in the future.

We need some comeback on these threads. The Culture thread was all well and good and the community sourced some excellent ideas - but then you guys all disappeared into the treehouse and thrashed out plans for some ideas and discarded the rest, and a lot of these fell by the wayside because people forgot and weren't informed of what happened.

An update after a month would have been a good shift into a 6-monthly update system. Just a (probably global) thread every so often to keep the entire userbase informed of what is going on with moderation policy and how the site is being kept in check. A brief outline of decisions made and why they were done so. A "State of the Union" if you will.

An overview of what suggestions the Mods are genuinely considering would be nice.

I'm not going to expand on my ideas if nobody plans on using them, anyway.

[Shaggai]

Another possibility: Maybe something along the lines of a "half-mod": They're given access to a small amount of information that normal players don't usually get, like the warning history of players, and are given only two abilities: unofficial warnings and some sort of "flag for review by a full mod" thing. They would need less vetting, and more of them could be promoted at once, since one of the limitations for full mod promotion is getting used to the new tools. It could also be a step along the way to full mod, and would allow more moderation of the forums. It could also help mod-player communications, as they are a part of the mod team but with less power and therefore less incentive to hang onto said power (as the mods are sometimes accused of doing). There's probably something wrong with this, though, so if anyone can point it out that would be good.

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

Because I want a better Nationstates. You?

The same. We're not all that different.

Edit: and with that, my free period is at an end and I must get back to teaching about Halloween.

Well no. That is not the case. I want a better Nationstates for all. You want a better Nationstates for you and most of the mods. One that entails being:

- Non-consistent in rulings because hey look at all that extra work
- Biased in rulings...trolls are trolls unless they are called Hippo, YGO, New Mittani et al
- Snarky in rulings because...well....who knows? Kinks? A feeling of superiority? Which leads to
- Superiority over the user base by not applying the rules to moderators as they are to the user base

Four pretty clear cut examples that have been mentioned many times but yet completely ignored. These are systemic issues that do need to be addressed because these are the root causes of a massive distrust towards the current moderation team (with one or two exceptions).

This thread is a typical example. We point out major issues that need to be addressed from a procedural standpoint and all you go on about is the rules. The rules are not the issue, as has been repeatedly stated. The issue is that through years of bad moderation, sops thrown at the users base (lets make a couple of the users Mods, that'll calm down the masses until next time, rinse, repeat), and a clear unwillingness for the more incompetent mods to resign we are now at this situation, where a large number of LONG TERM POSTERS have left.

If people who have invested a lot of time and effort up and leave, especially a large group of them, you obviously have a serious issue. Going on about the rules and not addressing the base issues is not going stop anything. It'll probably make things worse. Yes worse because you are effectively ignoring, once again, what we have been telling you guys for the last nine odd years.

[Dyakovo]

An actual system for disciplining mod misconduct. Such a system would require real transparency - no more secret"reprimands" More importantly, it would actually have to be applied. Complaints would have to be taken seriously. No more dismissing them out of hand as the grumblings of someone holding a grudge. And mods would have to be held to a higher standard than players. At the moment, many of us see certain mods breaking rules daily without repercussions. So much so that it's become a standing joke. People don't have confidence in mods they don't respect. Respect is earned, and once damaged, hard to restore.

A public review of the Cameroi situation is absolutely necessary. The shut down of the discussion on that was the last straw for me and many others. The decision to allow him to remain on a site targeted at schools was bad enough. But to cut off objections as a witch hunt and threaten legal action against players was impardonable.

These two can really only really be addressed by bringing in an outside team, IMO. If the ad revenue is not enough to cover a team of 3-4 pros, at least some outside party ought to be engaged to help sort out all the crap set up the suggested rubric, weed out the bad apples, and do regularly review the situation.

[Vakolic]

An actual system for disciplining mod misconduct. Such a system would require real transparency - no more secret"reprimands" More importantly, it would actually have to be applied. Complaints would have to be taken seriously. No more dismissing them out of hand as the grumblings of someone holding a grudge. And mods would have to be held to a higher standard than players. At the moment, many of us see certain mods breaking rules daily without repercussions. So much so that it's become a standing joke. People don't have confidence in mods they don't respect. Respect is earned, and once damaged, hard to restore.

A public review of the Cameroi situation is absolutely necessary. The shut down of the discussion on that was the last straw for me and many others. The decision to allow him to remain on a site targeted at schools was bad enough. But to cut off objections as a witch hunt and threaten legal action against players was impardonable.

These two can really only really be addressed by bringing in an outside team, IMO. If the ad revenue is not enough to cover a team of 3-4 pros, at least some outside party ought to be engaged to help sort out all the crap set up the suggested rubric, weed out the bad apples, and do regularly review the situation.

That paticular case reeks of double standards.

Pedophylia is illegal everywhere, and Cameroi is still allowed on this site. Zoophylia is legal in several countries, yet 1000 cats was deleted?

[Edlichbury]

An interesting question. What is the vetting procedure for a moderator?

we look at their TGs.

Suggestion: don't do that anymore. It's rather unsettling that what is supposed to be private communication isn't and that you are so cavalier about it.
EDIT: It's also rather disturbing that some mods remained active in the game-side of NS after being modded if they also could, at any moment, look through TGs that could very well contain private gameplay moves. But hey, I'm never going to use TGs after this statement anyways.

[Bezombia]

we look at their TGs.

Suggestion: don't do that anymore. It's rather unsettling that what is supposed to be private communication isn't and that you are so cavalier about it.

...
Nothing's private on NS.
Nothing.
Not even your thoughts.

[Vakolic]

Suggestion: don't do that anymore. It's rather unsettling that what is supposed to be private communication isn't and that you are so cavalier about it.

...
Nothing's private on NS.
Nothing.
Not even your thoughts.

Not even ns-related skype conversations are private anymore.