Who would make for good moderators in the D&D forum?

I may disagree occasionally but I haven't really been divisive.

 

Was thinking... wouldn't it be nice to have an AI moderator.

 

Could we coax @Refman or @rhester out of retirement?

 

Someone I didn't quote suggested maybe a moderator isn't such a great idea. The more I think about the difficulty of moderating, the more I think it's worth considering. Regular moderating is already supposed to be a drag. Moderating political discussion here has got to be terrible. Especially in the current climate in which jihadis, white nationalists, incels, and other extremists and chaos agents are using social media platforms to disseminate their ideology and recruit members. Reading this thread, I see pretty widely divergent views on how intrusive the moderation should be. Aside from the political crap and accusations of bias, there's going to be some who are disappointed the mod won't do more to clean up and others who think he goes too far. Even @Clutch caught flak in this regard (including from me -- Clutch, I do appreciate you). Naming a moderator might just be setting someone up for failure.

Honestly, if I drew the short straw on this, I'd want a couple of folks banned (at least from D&D) before I did it. Maybe (hopefully!) that's disqualifying. It's nothing personal, but there are some posters who would make the job harder and it'd just be more expedient to not have them around. I'd wish them well in real life, conversing in some other venue. That's not in keeping with Clutch's historical tolerance, but I don't see how the job would be tolerable otherwise.

I know Clutch would have banned your IP, so it'd take extra work on your part to be Bruce. That's why I said allegedly. The problem I wanted to point out was this mistrust of the intentions of other posters. Maybe sometimes the mistrust is justified but sometimes it's not. The other one is @pgabriel with whom I occasionally correspond because we used to be in the same industry. I'm pretty sure the Russians have not taken over his account, but the accusations fly.

That's an interesting idea. If you don't know who the mod is, there won't be baseless accusations of bias. Of course, there could be actual cases of bias because of the anonymity.

I'd be fine with Haymitch.

Weird.

 

Need someone to more "Take names" and report to Clutch
Maybe an occasional - Simma Dahwn .. .

Should be enough

Rocket River

 

Another option is a respected poster that doesn’t get involved with the D&D like @basketballholic.

 

Who in their right mind would want to be a D&D moderator?

 

Not it!

A little coding could fix the problem. If you report someone, it automatically blocks you from reading their posts for a full month.

I tend to agree with Juan. Im not sure we need a moderator. The self moderator tools was implemented years ago. If you find something offensive, block the poster.

I still dont understand why people still bicker with BTG. Which is worse? The troll or those who continue to feed the troll.

 

I appreciate the thoughts @leroy I've got to say, its not a job I would want. After creating and running a vbulletin discussion forum for all high school sports in my region and dealing with all that bickering that goes on there, I've had my fill of deciding what is appropriate and what is not. You probably wouldn't want me based on my class management and coaching philosophy. I run a very tight ship.

 

Yes, it is an unfortunate paradox.

 

I was tempted by cml750's idea of making a moderator anonymous, but I think it would only fuel a game of speculation as everyone guessed who it was -- and I don't think it would be long before it was figured out.

 

If I am not mistaken, no one has mentioned Bigtexxx yet. He has always seemed kind-hearted and fair.

 

I believe you are overthinking it. A mod only needs to step in when people debating start getting angry and hurling increasingly worse insults. For the most part a mod would only need to give a warning or two everyone once in a while. Anyone who was a mod should not make decisions based on who they agree with in any given debate. They would only need to let anyone getting carried away to know to tone it down. I would think just a "be careful you are close to crossing a line" warning to the participant(s) would be enough to steer a conversation back to civility. I think it would be very rare that more than a warning would be needed. Even though we have diametrically opposing views between the left and right leaning members, 99.9% of the time we are able to keep things civil. A heavy handed moderator is not needed. Only one who would try to head of a devolving thread like the one that led to this issue. There is very little that needs to change here.

I suppose someone could abuse the privilege but they would still be beholden to @Clutch. A simple private message to Clutch would alert him to check out the new moderator(s) to see if they are showing bias. As far as being anonymous, I do not think any left leaning people would feel a known right leaning person would be fair to them and vice versa. If the mod does the job correctly their leanings will not show. The job may very ell lead to disciplining someone you happen to like and agree with but the anonymity would allow them to do what is needed.

 

My ignore list precludes me from seeing most of the usual suspects that seem to be the primary source of the current problem under discussion. Therefore, I would not be a good moderator but would suggest that my ignore list be used as blueprint for a surgical strike of mass banning.

Problem solved.

It is one thing to post snark, as I and others often do, in response to disagreeable content, but we have a few who see it as their unfettered duty to destroy discussion by responding to every post in every thread with venom and vile and unwavering sociopathic verisimilitude.

We had a good start a couple of weeks ago.

 

I think we need to establish just what the rules are for the D&D before it could be adequately moderated. Those solid rules would eliminate some of the judgement calls where bias could and likely would creep in. For instance, if we instituted a flat out no personal attack rule and disciplined EVERYONE who violated that rule, we'd have a more civil D&D and as people are disciplined, there would be a rule that could be pointed out rather than expressing merely a subjective opinion as to the reasoning behind the discipline.

Then again, ad hominem attacks are something like half of what happens in the D&D so that rule would fundamentally change the entire forum.

 

Pole would do the job well.

JuanValdez as well.

Bobrek would also be a great choice.

There are a number of possibilities out there but if I had to suggest one it is Bobrek because although he has a real dry sense of humor, he tends to be fair and consistent.

 

I use a point system based on infractions with some leeway for interpretation by the mod team.

@Clutch This is what I instituted and it has worked well. It's just a cut and paste, but you'll get the idea.

 

..

..Bobby

 

someone who's neither a liberal nor a conservative?

 

That's an interesting system that is simultaneously incredibly strict and sort of lenient. I do very much like the idea of having a written rule system to refer back to when justifying discipline and I like the pre-determined disciplines for certain infractions.

I think your set of rules might be too strict for the D&D, but the basic framework is probably something that most would agree with.

Nope, I'd make a terrible mod because I wouldn't want to ban anyone. Warnings, time outs, and that kind of thing is pretty much as far as I'd ever want to go and I wouldn't want to do that very often if ever. My philosophy with that kind of thing is to have as few rules as possible, but those rules cannot be broken by anyone without some kind of discipline which would would most likely mean a time out or a temp ban. I don't think there's a person on this board that catches more heat than I do and I don't have a problem with that, I've got incredibly thick skin about that kind of thing....but not everyone feels the same as I do about that kind of thing. If everyone agrees to a free for all, it works, but when not everyone wants that kind of situation you have to set more strict parameters and I don't really feel comfortable having to do that if for no other reason than the hypocrisy of it coming from me.

As I've said, it absolutely could not be me and Clutch has said as much, but I would prefer a mod that hates having to be a mod rather than someone who would enjoy the power and would want to use it.