The New Categories, Moderators, and A Question

[Titanium Dome]

After watching this new alignment of Technical Help and DIY, I want to say it's working fairly well for me.

Seems like there's less noise in the Technical Help forum and it's turning more and more into a real technical aid area. I know there are some DIY, Marketplace, and Off Topic threads that get started there, but there's better policing to get them out and into the correct thread.

Thanks to the moderators for doing that, and, as a word of encouragement, do it sooner. I think the moderators' presences on the forums is a "when available" kind of thing, and I understand that. Nonetheless, it seems like there are significant gaps of time when moderators are not around, and things sometimes get screwy.

The bigger LH gets, the harder it will be to keep up the quality. It will need more attention, and that attention will have to be present virtually all the time.

We have many members whose sense of humor can be close to the edge, including mine, and who doesn't love a good jab and poke, or a nasty little poison arrow now and then? I mean, really, who doesn't? Yet, if we all indulged in vapidity, the place would degenerate into a locker room of one liners and insults.

Some of the more veteran members already invoke the past as a better time for meaningful discourse, and my hope is that the Technical Help forum and DIY forum will rekindle some of this past accomplishment.

Here's hoping I won't get a bunch of smart-ass one liners in response, but the question is this:

What are some useful strategies, rules, or guidelines that we can look at for raising the bar here at LH Forums?

I'm not interested in censorship, big brother, or other heavy-handed approaches, but topics more like these:

Moderator training
Putting a threshold on posting counts
Setting limits on number of posts per day
Allowing ratings of posts

These are all just ideas, but I hope the list will cause you to think and not just to react.

[boputnam]

A very interesting post, "Ti". Thanks (I think...) for raising these issues.


...as a word of encouragement, do it sooner. I think the moderators' presences on the forums is a "when available" kind of thingThankfully, we all have dayjobs. Variable, but we do. And, some of us have hobbies, too. We try to have sufficient overlap, but, well, sometimes we get drunk, and miss the event... :rotfl:


What are some useful strategies, rules, or guidelines that we can look at for raising the bar here at LH Forums?

1) Moderator training
2) Putting a threshold on posting counts
3) Setting limits on number of posts per day
4) Allowing ratings of posts
By the numbers...
1) We are an ad hoc committee that never "meets" and is as responsive as we can be. We pm A LOT, but cannot hope to keep pace with the growing popularity here. Does this moot our efforts? We hope not, and we pm constantly on how to be effectual, but not intrusive. A delicate balance. Regardless, we are surely not "trainable"... :no:

2) Unreasonable. Posts are precipitated by the topic, or dialogue. It is, and must remain, dynamic.

3) ibid, #2.

4) This is not a popularity contest, nor a "Golden Globes". Such ratings have been proposed before and seem to inhibit contributions. We cannot know where pearls of experience or new ideas may gestate and come from, but to inhibit anything, is simply wrong. Although we don't require Members use their actual names, we have all seen there remains defensive reaction to argument and/or "judgement" here. That is one reason why "Giskard", amongst others, was so insistant upon establishing the DIY Forum. This is a critical attempt at parsing "opinion" from JBL Engineering (Technical Help), so that our readers can know when they are entering the realm of DIY. Ratings are moot - how can we handicap the suitability of the voters? Members need to decide themselves, based upon the dialogue, whether they endorse the concepts. Moderators strive to parse and attribute things to facilitate those decisions. Moderators are like judges: they do not make law, they only interpret it.

[yggdrasil]

Very interesting indeed.

It is a fact that the moderators are on "when available". As the need for more continous moderation grows, there will be a need for more moderators and moderator training.

Some of the problematic threads and spam are started by new members. We could look into the possibility of setting new members posting under moderation before they become visible.

[Ian Mackenzie]

I think one of the problems is regular's often run out of things or new discoveries to post about and then seek out to engage in less useful reactive posts for their own amusement. And we are seeing a rise in SPAM, surprise surprise.

The result of this chemistry is the need for a diy forums where and perhaps a Chat room where people can shoot the breeze.

On the other hand for those (and I think the number is dwindling) who are prepared to research and discover there are still a lot of learning to be done.

Unfortunately not everyone is interesting in growing their knowledge or appreciation of what JBL Lansing Heritage is about and we see a continual profileration of noise.

My view is the number one issue is still misinformation.

Most people come here looking for information. There needs to be new powers introduced or rules where a post or thread needs validation before it can be realised as fact or technically correct.

If we had a rating or ranking of Posters and think that would be a useful means of tempering the issue.

Just try doing a Google and check of the quality of the posts, most of it is rubbish and by the same members who spam anf waffle over and over. For every one good post we probably have five bad or inaccurate posts..go figure.

[Titanium Dome]

A very interesting post, "Ti". Thanks (I think...) for raising these issues.

Thankfully, we all have dayjobs. Variable, but we do. And, some of us have hobbies, too. We try to have sufficient overlap, but, well, sometimes we get drunk, and miss the event... :rotfl:

By the numbers...
1) We are an ad hoc committee that never "meets" and is as responsive as we can be. We pm A LOT, but cannot hope to keep pace with the growing popularity here. Does this moot our efforts? We hope not, and we pm constantly on how to be effectual, but not intrusive. A delicate balance. Regardless, we are surely not "trainable"... :no:

2) Unreasonable. Posts are precipitated by the topic, or dialogue. It is, and must remain, dynamic.

3) ibid, #2.

4) This is not a popularity contest, nor a "Golden Globes". Such ratings have been proposed before and seem to inhibit contributions. We cannot know where pearls of experience or new ideas may gestate and come from, but to inhibit anything, is simply wrong. Although we don't require Members use their actual names, we have all seen there remains defensive reaction to argument and/or "judgement" here. That is one reason why "Giskard", amongst others, was so insistant upon establishing the DIY Forum. This is a critical attempt at parsing "opinion" from JBL Engineering (Technical Help), so that our readers can know when they are entering the realm of DIY. Ratings are moot - how can we handicap the suitability of the voters? Members need to decide themselves, based upon the dialogue, whether they endorse the concepts. Moderators strive to parse and attribute things to facilitate those decisions. Moderators are like judges: they do not make law, they only interpret it.

Thanks, Bo and others for responding. Let me dig a little deeper.

Moderator training: Here I was thinking about a little "extra curricular" reading for current moderators, but more reasonably that there should be some moderators-in-training who go through a pre-ordained process as they await their appointment. There are many good resources for this, including

http://www.emoderators.com/moderators.shtml

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/super-moderator-guide (for you super moderators, of course)

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/guide-life-parts-1-2

At this point it seems it should be more than "he seems like a good guy" or "I like his posts." I really do think many of us are trainable--in fact capable of self-improvement in this regard if directed to the right reesources and asked to honestly report our progress.


Putting a threshold on posting counts: Here the idea is to use the the post count much as yggdrasil suggests. A moderator is assigned to preview the originating post of any thread started by a member with less than 10 posts or less than 50 posts or less than some other number. Or all posts by a member with less than 5 or 10 posts must be previewd by a moderator before posting. This would clean up a lot of shit IMO, and take care of the hustlers and whores who just want to pimp the system for their use. Any new poster who had some thing to really offer would get his/her stuff posted, even if the end result was only one or two posts ever, while the "spankingvanillaice" people of the world would betray themselves before their posts ever ate up too much bandwidth. The mods could extend this numerical probation until the pesky poster either gave up or shaped up.


Setting limits on number of posts per day: Here I'd have to say that you're probably right. My intent was to coerce members into choosing more carefully what they post, knowing that there's a cut off. Totally unworkbale as you say, because I am, of course, one of the worst offenders.


Allowing ratings of posts: I'm glad to see Ian buying into this concept, because I do think it has merit. If someone's overall posts over time fell below a certain average, then that person goes back to "zero" and is put in the numerical probation category (see "Putting a threshold on posting counts"). The problem with this is that if someone had a bone for somebody else, he could go through and give "0" ratings to his nemesis and single-handedly bring his post ratings below the allowable level. OTOH this would be a pretty transparent tactic and the mods could fire an ICBM up this guy's ass if necessary. This would take some more thought, so I'm waffling on this one. :dont-know

Hope to hear some more. :yes:

[duaneage]

I have joined and un joined forums where the kids ran the show and things were really out of control. With a few exceptions this site is excellent and well run. Most problems seem to come from the Marketplace forum, no surprise since the trouble starts when someone tries to manipulate an auction they have or worse yet rip someone off.

limiting posting on the Marketplace to established posters sounds reasonable until you consider some new members might be looking to sell speakers they came into, a recent post by a new Paragon owner is one example ( new poster who wondered what he bought for 250 dollars) and an heir to an S8 system of his fathers comes to mind as well. I think a forum member bought the paragon in that case.

Having members register with the site formally before posting in Marketplace might cut down on the number of Bozos but ultimately would be unworkable and inconvienient.

[yggdrasil]

My view is the number one issue is still misinformation.

One approach to addressing this problem could be establishing a knowledge-base.

Whenever knowledge is established in a thread / post, any member could report it to the knowledge-base.

Before surfacing in the knowledge-base, the member(s) responsible for the knowledge-base would have to validate the information. The information would then have to be copied and / or edited into the knowledge-base.

This could be a part of "The Technical reference" section.

[Techbot]

This could be a part of "The Technical reference" section.I would have to verify anything submitted to the Technical Reference section by whatever means available.

Misinformation in the general forums has now reached "fact of life"/"nature of the beast" status and is no longer monitored.

[Titanium Dome]

With the recent sweeping improvements to the software and to the site, I'm trying to bring a couple of these issues back to the forefront.

1)With so many more forums, posts, and members, it seems like additional moderators might be needed. I still think a little training beforehand, even of the general kind mentioned above should be a prerequisite.

2) The idea of posting count thresholds for new members would have made the recent unfortunate events with new members less likely to have occurred.

The other ideas I mentioned before are not being brought up again, because I think Bo demonstrated that daily posting limits won't work, and the ratings idea needs a lot more work to be practical.

[Audiobeer]

It seems like so much work. I wouldn't be a moderator even if the boards depended on it. I know I sound like an ass.....just being honest. I couldn't imagine anyone moderating and then expected to take a course on it or follow any other guidelines than the ones they have. The owner of the board asked people to moderate who he felts shared his thinking and his standards on how he wanted his board. Good for him. The ideal that everyone needs to solicite him to change this or that may be a good deal but it dosen't mean it is going to happen, especially if the owner as and those who have been here and contributed (I'm not one of them) are happy with the board as is. I have to comppliment them on the enjoyment I get out of it and the efforts they make. I am not attacking anyone, I just feel a little bad how the efforts are sometimes acknowledged. Please don't anyone take it personaly.