Moderating in Moderation
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P0st3d by NateBaller, 08.08.2012 - 02:27
What is the importance of a coalition? If you naively believe they exist for competitive play then you are sadly mistaken as serious CWs rarely occur, and tournaments die nearly as quickly as they are created. The real essence of a coalition is a community within the greater community of Afterwind. These are the people you will be spending disproportionate amount of time playing, chatting, and socializing with.
Since I first started participating in the Afterwind society, I had no chance of avoiding the chorus of "mod bias" chats. While most of this can be disregarded as disgruntled players complaining about punishment - as I wrote a long post about this previously - I have recently seen the merit of their accusation somewhat. The bias does not exist in the decision making of the mods, but rather what has been engrained in their subconscious. They spend so much time existing within the brotherhood of a coalition that it cripples their ability to be objective towards the broader community as a whole.
I cannot sit here and claim elaborate scheming done on the behalf of certain members, however, I do have an argument to make. There exists an appalling schism between the moderating staff in the premier coalitions, and much of the old-guard community that resides outside these coalitions. New mods are chosen by admins of course, but they are not involved enough in the community to make such decisions. Therefore, they rely on the recommendations of the moderating staff. There is an inherent flaw in this system that arises here - these proposals are based on personal reference… thus automatically giving players who are in the current inner circles (most notably, coalitions) of the mods an automatic advantage.
I know the moderating staff personally, I am your friends, but I still feel the need to say my peace. It is impossible to remain unbiased while still conforming to the system of coalitions in the game. The reason being is that while in a coalition, groups of members work towards the superordinate goal of bettering the coalition. This is the reason clan mates are viewed more positively than those outside the clan. That, coupled with the prior mentioned disproportionate amount of time you spend together, causes these 'inner circle' players to be viewed as more viable options to join the moderating staff.
I wrote this hoping it would enlighten your views towards the angst many long time members feel. In my opinion members like Barry, Tophats, Pulse… who have been pillars of this community for well over a year, would make much more loyal and active moderators who would contribute more efficiently to the continued success of the game than someone who has only recently started playing afterwind a few months ago. This 'old guard' of players has stuck by this game through many changes, yet are simply not included in the 'in-group' that has developed. It makes clear sense to me that players like this would be much more committed to the success of our community and game, and those are the type of people I would want moderating.
Obviously there has been clashes with the coalition SRB. I am not here to defend them, obviously because they have been in the wrong, but I have at least grown a empathy for their plight. They are condemned for who they associate with, while other are celebrated for who they chose to correlate with.
I am not ranting about the recent choices, I am sure they will do fine and are good people. I am talking about the situation in general. They come from the same group of people with unwavering connection. In my mind, there can only be one solution to this entire problem:
As long as the conditions exist, this cycle will continue and the community will splinter even further. There is only one way to end the sequence, and it is done in many other communities. Moderators should not be associated with the coalition feature. Either they should refrain from being in any coalition, or join one together such as Squirrels. Guest14502 is considered by many to be the mod with the most objective based mindset. The obvious reasoning behind this is that he doesn't have a coalition clouding his judgment. The second you chose to accept the job of moderating a community, you must in some way make the sacrifice of separating your self from it so intimately. It is the only true way to remain unbiased.
Trust me, I understand this would be hard for many of you, but it seems like a necessary step to me. I am attempting to present my argument in a cohesive manner. Others have suggested eliminating moderators, or having player based election. I do not agree with either of these at all. The community needs a sense of order separate from mob rule, not some radical solution. A moderator free from the encompassing confines of a coalition would be an unbiased judge of the entirety of the community.
This is my full opinion on the matter.
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Nate, I find it pretty arrogant but altogether laughable that you claim there is an invisible subconscious veil surrounding me and impeding my judgment. Moreover, it's an unsubstantiated claim that cannot be refuted. This thread is devoid of any examples in which a mods judgement is clearly impeded by loyalty to his clan. The reason I think this is the case is because the bias is so immeasurable that no examples are detectable. Furthermore, how would I go about proving you wrong? If this veil is invisible to me then I cannot prove it does not exist. Essentially, you are making an unfalsifiable claim without a shred of evidence and using that claim to suggest big changes for the community. You're making a big show out of something that can be reasonably dealt with in a manner similar to what Tophats suggested. The community is not collapsing, there is no detectable "cycle of alienation", and Afterwind is doing fine. If you believe that the mod selection process needs some reform, let's talk it out in a manner similar to what Barry was suggesting. But like Guest communicated (apparently the most objective mod), enough with the drama.
---- The church is near, but the road is icy... the bar is far away, but I will walk carefully...
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I was only presenting my solution to the problem. I am sure people have others, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them.
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Acquiesce, the problem is not just Nate feels what he stated, a lot of people feel the same way, but haven't been as vocal as Nate or ZOG. and to be honest, I don't believe the conspiracy theories but I do believe there is an inner-clique among certain groups in this game, but it's human nature for things like this to develop, it always does. now, the problem is that people outside of that "inner-clique" after a while get really tired, and start doing stupid things. the problems aren't big right now, as you mentioned, but if they aren't stopped when they are small, they will get bigger, and bigger until there is no way to solve it. What nate proposes is to just make minor changes to the Mod selection because almost everybody fears mob rule, and especially people like hdrakon1, who have been known to use different IP addresses to cause trouble in the game. We all want to see at least, some minor tweaks to the mod selection, because a lot of people just feel there is an "inner-clique" that's deciding everything and everybody else is getting left out.
---- "Fear me, because I am a Hispanic, and Hispanics fear nobody. We Hispanics will party hard, but we will also fight hard, and won't give up until we defeat you. we always remember and we never forget anything."-Mexican_Wizard.
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I value your opinions and I think I speak for the rest of the mods when I say we are willing to discuss those changes. But part of discussing suggestions is pointing out the flawed/unnecessary ones. Like I said, I have no problem with increasing community involvement in the mod selection process.
---- The church is near, but the road is icy... the bar is far away, but I will walk carefully...
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Me neither, but nobody had provided a solution so far how to more involve community in mod appointing process. In my opinion, player's popularity shouldn't be a deciding factor.
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I liked the opinion of what a previous player said, that the mods are given anonymous accounts that nobody knows except for admin and the other mods. this, i believe, is a compromise to other options that have been proposed because we can all agree that player popularity is bad, and especially since we have people like Hdrakon1 who can use alt accounts to rig elections to their favor. and about the anonymous accounts, it allows the mods to truly crack down on the flaming wars and the nationality bashing that happens on the chat because as soon as the trolls see that the mods are offline, they start flaming and the rest, we all know. and I propose that the mods are allowed to keep their original accounts and could login to which ever account they please, so that they can still be with their own clans. that's what I propose, and I see that as a better solution than resorting to popular voting, because we have all came to the conclusion that popular vote would lead to chaos.
---- "Fear me, because I am a Hispanic, and Hispanics fear nobody. We Hispanics will party hard, but we will also fight hard, and won't give up until we defeat you. we always remember and we never forget anything."-Mexican_Wizard.
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I say let players elect their people, I mean, there is already something similar to elections just for the moderators only and as someone educated in the values of democracy it looks like a very arrogant position to think the people aren't prepared enough to select their man on their own. I understand that half the people in this thread are against this but there is really no other viable option that can be implemented quickly and safely by the site owners. The debates should be going on how to avoid any kind of fraud on it to make sure it is accurate as the problems in an election are little compared to their benefits, and that is especially true when comparing to alternatives. I also will use this post as a side note to politely ask the moderators not to call the players arrogant in their views, and I'll make sure to stop anything of the like to come from the other way. Thank you for listening to this thread, thanks in advance for not discarding it.
---- hue
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I think this thread is an incredibly valid discussion - not of OMGF MOD BIAS, but of the nature of moderation itself, even the nature of the community. As Barry said, everyone needs to relax and enjoy the game. Whenever I'm in game I feel like everyone is on high alert and everything is offensive and everyone else who is not in your coalition is the enemy. And whenever the rival coalition players another coalition more than once, OMGF THEY ARE FARMING. We're all just friends who haven't had the opportunity to have a beer together. If every player who has troubles with some other player could sit down and just have a friendly beer together things would be instantly solved. (On the topic of democracy: we could make it completely open, this way no anonymous rigging. perhaps even limiting it to rank 5+ players.)
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On what grounds can a player elect a mod? Will he pick someone because they are friends? Or maybe because he likes his posts on forum and agree with his views? As i already explained in my last post: Getting someone mod is a longer proces where we will take a look at many things (also certain stats and history, witch is not available for players). That balance will be gone if we elect mod by players. Imagine what will happen if we have a mod that does completely what he wants to, and wants to prove himself because he is elected by a certain playergroup. Will he ban a player who voted for him? Or just give him another chance? I think you can compare this with a company: Its not the customers who will choose the staff, its the company itself, and its for good reason. Customers can complain about the staff, but are not concerned by getting new staff. As Acquie and Caul also said; i'm up to look at new suggestions to the current system; but so far i didn't read a good alternative.
---- Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
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A community election is a horrible idea. No offence but it's best if the current mods choose the new mods. What can be done is making a thread on a future candidate and have people voice their opinions instead of voting. For example: Captain465 (candidate) Opinion(post) #1 = valid Opinion(post) #1 = invalid or disagreeable (dunno random explanation) etc.... After asking the community their opinions and having enough valid posts (majority) or even just to give the moderators a general view or sneak peek on the candidate should be enough information to clarify one's nomination.
---- Don't trust the manipulative rabbit.
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Well It's already been a vote for some time, the first few mods to be put in were selected by admins and since that they have been voted on by the mods who are players too, then the agreed candidate is confirmed by admins. (with a few, maybe even one, case(s) where there hasn't been a vote by the mods in place at the time) while I agree you do have more ways to look into the history, most people can remember when someone is banned or punished, since we are such a small community. (other than this I can't think of something you have over the average player). I would assume most people would select depending on respect for whoever they vote for, which can be made by any of those things. If you are going to be an authority to someone, you might as well be respected right? I would hope the votes would be anonymous, so there would be unlikely to have much bias. EDIT: another thing you can do is put a rank restriction, If you think someone who is low rank would not be well suited for forming an opinion.
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I'm just a noob but..... I have yet to see a moderator do anything, much less do something I don't think was right. How much of a problem is this? I mean, I recently was selected for jury duty (Real Life) and sad to say but by the time someone gets in front of a judge and a jury 99% of the time, they deserve the maximum penalty available. Is that not the case with moderation around here? By the time a moderator notices you are breaking the rules and decides to whack you, how many times did you break the rules BEFORE you were noticed? I'm pretty sympathetic towards moderators in general and really have not seen anything from them that makes it worth fussing about. Then again, as I said, I have not seen moderators in action. (looks over shoulder and wonders if I'm about to be banned for existing)
---- I have not yet begun to troll!
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It's definitely a good idea to let the current mods have the final say in who should be a mod, and the idea that TopHats proposed is actually really good. Mods still make the decision but the community has a say in the matter. My problem with the current system is that to be even considered as a candidate, you pretty much have to have some connection to a current mod. There are plenty of people who would make fantastic mods but will never even be considered because they are not in regular contact with any mods. Enquiring on the subject of becoming a mod is taboo from what I understand so where do they get they're candidates? You could say that seeing forum posts about improving the game and community could make the mods consider someone but without knowing the person more in depth is he really going to make it all the way to mod status? This may not be true for the older mods like Caulerpa, Pinheiro and Hugosch but for the more recent mod choices I find that it is. This is why communication with the players is very important not only in deciding if a candidate is worthy but also in candidate selection in general. Again, the mods should definitely have final say but we need to have our voices heard as well. P.S. I don't have any problems with of the current mods, this is just my point of view on the matter.
---- This doesn't really say anything, it's just a space filler while I try to come up with a better signature.
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Well how about this: Players don't decide who becomes a mod merely the players that go forward into the mod voting process. Kind of like the two tiers of voting that many nations employ or the US Presidential Candidate process. Say we have a popular vote: Tophats - 25 Nate - 28 Pulse - 25 Bargain - 34 Hdrakon - 928271724 etc. etc. Select an arbitrary number that includes a reasonable amount of candidates (Say top 8?) then those names go on to the mods and they can decide the suitability. The players select the candidates but the Mods and finally Ivan and Amok get the final say. I'm afraid this solution doesn't really solve the perception of 'mod bias' however It does mean that there's a certain amount of representation from the player base... Maybe to carry on with the anonymous mod idea that was made earlier the mod discussion thread could be made public but names hidden so we can see the rationale for these decisions?
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We make board for candidates and let them post their threads and express their views. We let the supporters write why they support them. The extra information mods have doesn't make up for the vast amount of individual minds that make up their opinions based on what they've seen.
---- hue
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I have yet to see why moderators, who have such powerful positions inside the community, should be involved in the coalition aspect of the game. This inevitably breads unconscious nepotism, and leads to nothing positive for the overall afterwind society. There does not need to be election, although I can see the positive of what Barry suggested. In my opinion the current staff of mods needs to continue to choose new ones, but this needs to be completely separate from the clan structure - which is impossible if they are themselves involved in it. Obviously I didn't think many of the current mods would agree with me because I am taking away a privileged of theirs. I will say that their role of moderating should be above their desire to stay in a coalition. You can try to claim the two things are not related, but I honestly do not believe that is even possible. There comes a point when you must put aside your selfish ambitions in order to use power responsibly.
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Basically i like tophats idea. but i think the thread with the opinions of the candidates should be some kind of hidden, because if you write something little bad against another person and he/she reads this. The person might get mad at you, which was not intended from you. if you make it public, also ok, but then you will probably not get as many opinions as you would get with a hidden thread. @Counterpart: you don't really need to be conntected to the mods right now. If you have a look at ~Tzeentch. He didn't really have contact with him. They just choose him, because they saw him maybe sometimes in a game and especially because of his many helpful comments in this forum.
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And some goes for Glenn and Pantha, obviously, recent mods weren't picked by friendship or coalition lines as some think.
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Because before being moderators we are players, just like you or anyone else. We don't earn anything to moderate apart from being hated by at least half of the community for trying to keep the order, but let's discuss the other part...
And I honestly believe have a really messed up idea about how moderators act, there's no nepotism and I've never seen any coalition influencing mods decisions, including the choices to promote new mods. In fact, we're more worried about promoting mods from other coalitions, but we have our standards to check. You're trying to make your opinion about the system sounds like the true, which it isn't, in fact. There's no conspiracy, my friend.
Same goes for you, Caul. I've appointed you before we had any connection. This whole 'inner circle' thing is making me sick...
---- "Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms".
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This is the first time someone has actually made a both tangible and reasonable suggestion in this thread regarding the mod selection process. I would have no problem employing some sort of system in which the community has some sort of say in who the new mods are. I would just like to make it perfectly clear why I think it is important that the mods continue to have the final decision and why popular election is such a horrendous move. Firstly as Hugo stated, mods have access to information about players that helps us in making our decisions. Information that the greater community lacks. This information goes beyond bans. Secondly, being mods ourselves, we understand the sort of persona and toolset that is necessary to be a successful mod. I'm not claiming that we have always made the best decisions in the past, but I do believe we are in a position to make a more informed decision. A last point that I think has gone ignored is the fact that we (the rest of the mods) are forced to work with this person. This doesn't mean that we will choose the player we agree with most or enjoy spending time around the most. It does mean that there has to be some chance of successful communication and cooperation with the player for him to be successful working with us and vice versa.
---- The church is near, but the road is icy... the bar is far away, but I will walk carefully...
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If you actually read my post you would have seen that I didn't necessarily say that there was some form of inner circle, my point was that a lot of people would make good mods but had low odds of ever really being considered because they were somewhat off the current mods' radars. I also said "This may not be true for the older mods like Caulerpa, Pinheiro and Hugosch but for the more recent mod choices I find that it is." I still think mods should have final say in the deciding process and I think that having mods exempt from coalition is a dumb idea. I'm not against you, if anything I'm on your side.
---- This doesn't really say anything, it's just a space filler while I try to come up with a better signature.
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Idea for the electoral system Having a thread specifically for Mod Elections is really the only thing I see suitable for this. Just like the "Ideas and Suggestions" thread, but of course naming it to maybe the "Mod Nomination" thread. Thus, having anyone who wants to throw in an opinion on a nominee to give the mods a better impression of them. For ex: "Jhon23 has been around for over a year now and his been a great contributor to the questions thread....." If there's any hate comments against other players they can simply be removed. The moderation as it is I think people are making the mods look bad here. Yes, some things could have been dealt with in a better manner, like the promoting of ideas and electing new mods, but those are just minor faults. Everyone is trying to change the mods and their system without explaining why or how. In my opinion the current mods are fine, i voiced my ideas about a possibly new electoral system and that was it. Since there's a lack of constructive criticism I'll explain my side of it, and what mods should maybe try to do. So firstly, the "Muting" power is a bad method of moderation, players will just be more tempted in trolling again and telling everyone how they got muted once it's lifted. The "Warning" concept is much better and should be used more effectively. For ex: "You are being warned for a racist offence, one more act will lead to a 2 week ban" This should settle things more accordingly for instance. That's really all I have to say about moderation. There is minor faults but nothing major. Lastly, I think forcing mods out of their coalitions ruins the prime goal of the game. They are, in fact, just players who play the game for fun or competition.
---- Don't trust the manipulative rabbit.
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This thread is pointless. The responses are actually annoying me. Listen, I have been completely represented wrongly in this thread. My sole argument is that mods should not be in coalitions as it causes more problems in the community. Besides this, I think the current mods do a good job. I guess my tone was a tad negative, but I do seriously think it is a problem. The moment I say anything bad about the current power structure, I get lumped into the heap of people like Zog. Now I understand why so many 'Yes-Men' are chosen to be mods. The moment you bring up any sort of criticism, you get labeled as arrogant. I had a suggestion, it wasn't liked by the powers that be (Shocking). Please lock this thread as there is no chance of it being implemented. Locked.
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