Mod increase request

[Marco]

I don't know where to suggest this, I guess it's the only place.

 

 

 

I (and many others, just take a look at the responses in the now hidden 'Free Gold' thread that was in the General board today) have noticed a huge lack of any Moderators being on at certain times of the day.

 

 

 

For instance a topic with a dodgy link in it sellng gold on the General Board took over an hour to be locked and hidden.. not exactly a good impression to people new to Tip.it. And I have personally not seen a mod on the Help & Advice forum for at least 3 days, I know this because I posted a semi-guide (not to go into the guides section!!) in that forum listing the 'official' worlds to reduce questions, and asked for it to be stickied. I'm yet to even have a mod post on the topic, maybe the best option would be to report it to get some attention.

 

 

 

Anway, I digress, some more Tip.it mods would be nice. Right now there are... 0 mods on. I find it's worst for the time I get on (GMT) so it may be an idea to ask potential mods what timezone they're in so you don't have a cluster only on during EST hours for example.

 

 

 

P.S: I wouldn't say no to moderating Help & Advice/General, but please, anyone decent will do.

 

 

 

Thanks.

[Mercifull]

Its summertime and thus a lot of mods are on holiday and stuff. For the time and effort it takes to appoint and train new mods there would be no point because the rest of them will be active again. Just remember to use the report function and a member of staff will get to it as soon as possible.

[Guest]

Its summertime and thus a lot of mods are on holiday and stuff. For the time and effort it takes to appoint and train new mods there would be no point because the rest of them will be active again. Just remember to use the report function and a member of staff will get to it as soon as possible.

 

 

 

Maybe TIF should invest in some Southern Hemisphere Mods, just to counteract that problem. :-k

 

 

 

Though I understand by the time you train them as mods and everything the other mods will be back and the new mods won't be needed as much.

[InkofDeath]

@Merci, there's always an excuse for the lack of mods, during school, its either because they have exams, work, or they have real life issues, or because their volunteers. If they're not in high school, then its work, or its also because they're volunteers. I'm not trying to say mods can't use excuses like that, but it is the truth, there is always an excuse no matter what time of the year.

 

 

 

Thats why I don't think more mods will get more mod activity. I dont mean all this badly or for the good. I'm speaking neutral.

 

 

 

I'm sure though if more mods were designated in general, and other needed forums mod activity would improve, but some topics would still be posted at the time no mods are on. Thus another suggestion for more mods being posted.

 

 

 

It can't hurt though, I would like to see more mods active.

[Freesia]

For quite some time I noticed there is almost no mod activity during non-peak periods (4am to around 7am GMT) where afterwards I see only Kill Life coming in as a mod for the next 3 hours before mod activity is restored subsequently. I feel that we need some mods who are active during the non-peak periods, maybe some aussies or asian tip.it forum users.

[Albosky]

How do you know that the mods aren't just browsing with their status set to hidden?

 

 

 

It happens quite often , sometimes the mods just like to do their thing quietly.

 

 

 

 

 

We are ALWAYS looking for candidates to increase the size and activity of the moderator team, that doesn't mean its easy to find suitable people. We could have 200 moderators and there is still going to be a time when none of them are online, that's life.

 

 

 

Volunteering your services won't help your chances either, sorry.

[tripsis]

You have to give us some credit. Sometimes problematic threads are dealt with while there are still zero views on the thread. Other times, it takes a little longer. No matter how many moderators we have, there is no way that we can guarantee that everything will be dealt with instantly.

 

 

 

As for your topic in Help & Advice, I have seen it myself (as I like to think that I am an active reader/poster in Help & Advice). Topics normally aren't "stickified" on request (otherwise we'd have hundreds). Threads are made into stickies when the moderator/administrative team feels that it is necessary and will greatly benefit our users. But at the same time, we like to narrow the stickies down to only the essentials (otherwise we'd have tens of stickies in every forum :wall: ).

 

 

 

And as Albosky said, many moderators (just like regular users) like to keep their status set to "hidden" at times.

 

 

 

There are some days when I'm easily on Tip.it for 12+ hours. But there are other days (like today), where I spend the day hanging out with friends, so therefore my activity decreases. Like I said before, no matter how many moderators we have, it's impossible to guarantee that everything will be dealt with instantly. In addition, we moderators don't have a built-in spam radar. Most people forget that and leave problematic threads just sitting there (and even worse - reply to them), instead of reporting them so we can deal with it.

 

 

 

For future reference - do not reply to problematic threads. Some people seem to think that it's entertaining to spam them, but it really doesn't do anybody any good. All it does is keep the thread on the front page, for everyone to look at, giving the thread author even more publicity for his scam. But if nobody replied, it would soon fall to page two, away from users' eyes, until a moderator handles it. So instead of replying, report it and move on. That goes for any post or thread that breaks the rules.

 

 

 

And unfortunately, we cannot just snap our fingers and have 10 new moderators, scattered throughout the different timezones :( We are always looking for new moderators, but it's not that simple, as Albosky so accurately pointed out.

[Loge_05]

You could easily promote some of the local Mods to global. Kill_Life, for example, is on at least three hours a day, but has limited moderating capabilities. If there were more global mods, then they could catch some of these problematic topics.

[mrmyk]

heh, loge seems to always want more global mods :)

 

 

 

I think tip.it actually has quite a large amount of moderators as it is and they do quite a good job in general. All moderators are people with lives and of course that goes before runescape or tip.it so surely they can be forgiven if some aren't on at a specific time. What is more problematic is if a moderator is on but is confined to a forum which isn't being affected while others are being spammed or something bad. This has happened in the past so like loge i think just boost up the number of global mods of certain people :) Kill life for president

[jemathonical]

Now I'm gonna go way out that way -> and totally suggest something else. Bear with me :P

 

Tipit doesn't need more moderators, just stricter ones. Have an announcement that from 'today' any topic that is borderline spam will be locked and anything with flaming will be locked. Hopefully it will get into users heads that 'Wow, these mods don't take any crap, so I won't post any.'

 

It should still keep the community friendly and maybe the topics will improve too.

 

Hey, you never know. :wink:

[darkblade986]

Either that, or we need to make sure that a policy is kept that anyone who posts on a spam thread knowingly will receive the same punishment as the spammer. By knowingly, I mean a topic that obviously breaks a known rule (such as someone making a topic where the only post is random letters), rather than people responding to What-If topics, even though we do class them as spam (I think).

 

 

 

That should at least cut down on those posting on the spam topics as wanna-be mods.

[mrmyk]

Either that, or we need to make sure that a policy is kept that anyone who posts on a spam thread knowingly will receive the same punishment as the spammer. By knowingly, I mean a topic that obviously breaks a known rule (such as someone making a topic where the only post is random letters), rather than people responding to What-If topics, even though we do class them as spam (I think).

 

 

 

That should at least cut down on those posting on the spam topics as wanna-be mods.

 

 

 

It depends though doesn't it? I see nothing wrong with a person who isn't a mod pointing out what rule has been broken and pointing out that the topic has been reported if it is done maturely. But on the other hand i don't think something just saying "HAHAHA reported!" should be accepted.

[Gamerr]

1. Lol @ the PS of the author :lol:

 

 

 

2. There are no need of many more mods, maybe of more efficient mods

 

 

 

3. If you would make the mod mask a little more logical, there would be no problem. Make everybody who is a mod possible to mod the big boards. Problem solved.

[Kevin_]

I think we made the mistake of pointing to many mods who have restrictions when it comes to moderating. You can't exactly say we have alot of global mods.

[slayershunt]

most of the global mods hang out in the tip.it chat if you go in there and tell the of the problem i have no doubt they will respond

[eyehawk78]

Do non global moderators have the ability to deal with reported threads regardless of if the offending thread is on there on their own board?

 

If not I think that would help relieve most of the problematic threads a hell of a lot faster.

[Twist of Fate]

I would do it!

 

 

 

Ok ok look at the noob with the low post count.

 

 

 

But are post counts all that matters? I have my own site and forum that I am administrator of and I can be online alot.

[Kaphias]

I would do it!

 

 

 

Ok ok look at the noob with the low post count.

 

 

 

But are post counts all that matters? I have my own site and forum that I am administrator of and I can be online alot.

 

You just possibly lessened your chances.... #-o

[the_tallest1]

I can understand this from a user perspective. "Oh, this rule-breaking post has been here for a long while. There's something that needs to be changed with the moderation." I can't argue that we have a perfect system but we do have a constant process going on to get more mods. Old ones move on, new ones come in.

 

 

 

We do see the need of mods from different areas of the world and to have as much coverage 24 hours a day as possible. I think one point that many people gloss over is that moderating (among other positions) is a very thankless job majority of the time. I don't say this to make martyrs out of the forum and website staff or to garner sympathy or admiration but it's more or less true. There are bound to be times when there's no one on as Albosky said. Personally, I've had to stop before in the middle of something very important forum-wise because something in real life far eclipsed it in importance. I sure it's inconvenient for forum users to have a post sitting there but likewise understand that we sometimes have to pull ourselves away to take care of a child, to take a business phone call, or to simply prepare dinner for the family.

 

 

 

Having said all that, I think most of you agree we don't have a static staff list. We're constantly adding new people to make the staff the most efficient we can. In the time I've been here we've had at least 6 rounds of additions. Don't get me wrong though, I like hearing people's opinion on how well the forum is staffed. It helps to know when something needs to be done or looked into. I'm sure it won't be long before we have another round of mods.

[Dragontotem]

Do non global moderators have the ability to deal with reported threads regardless of if the offending thread is on there on their own board?

 

If not I think that would help relieve most of the problematic threads a hell of a lot faster.

 

 

 

If a moderator is assigned to take care of Rate this! and General, s/he can only lock/move etc. posts in those areas. They Can't go to Help&Advice and moderate stuff there, cause they dont have abilities :D

[Errdoth]

Do non global moderators have the ability to deal with reported threads regardless of if the offending thread is on there on their own board?

 

If not I think that would help relieve most of the problematic threads a hell of a lot faster.

 

 

 

If a moderator is assigned to take care of Rate this! and General, s/he can only lock/move etc. posts in those areas. They Can't go to Help&Advice and moderate stuff there, cause they dont have abilities :D

 

 

 

No offense to the the system, but that seems a bit of an odd way of doing things. I always though that the mods were assigned to certain boards, where they were to do the majority of their work, but in an emergency, had the power to go elsewhere. Are they not trusted enough to have power everywhere, or is there some other reason? :-s

[mrmyk]

Do non global moderators have the ability to deal with reported threads regardless of if the offending thread is on there on their own board?

 

If not I think that would help relieve most of the problematic threads a hell of a lot faster.

 

 

 

If a moderator is assigned to take care of Rate this! and General, s/he can only lock/move etc. posts in those areas. They Can't go to Help&Advice and moderate stuff there, cause they dont have abilities :D

 

 

 

No offense to the the system, but that seems a bit of an odd way of doing things. I always though that the mods were assigned to certain boards, where they were to do the majority of their work, but in an emergency, had the power to go elsewhere. Are they not trusted enough to have power everywhere, or is there some other reason? :-s

 

 

 

well, there's a mod hierarchy isn't there?

 

Admin > Global mod > Local mod > Mod for specific forums (Swampjedi in debate club as example).

 

 

 

Not sure really why this system is needed as all moderators are there to help but perhaps it is because the global mods might be more experianced and therefore as a reward for their hard work are then entrusted with all forums ;)

[InkofDeath]

Even if the global mods ddo have more experience, I think local moderators should be able to go to other forums in emergencies, which was said above.

 

 

 

I don't see the point to having mods who are contained to one forum only, and are unable to help in another forum due to their restrictions.

 

 

 

Imo if your chosen to be a moderator, you should have been given enough trust to do global mod activities, after some time with the forums. I think its a waste of man power to contain mods to certain forums, and be unable to do anything at all in another forum.

 

 

 

Though since no mod has clarified anything, there could be other non-mod reasons why their is global mods, and local mods...?

 

 

 

I think all moderators should be able to moderate every forum if their is no specific reason they shouldn't be able to...those reasons could be new to modding, or others I don't know, since no mod or admin has clarified the reasons...

[Loge_05]

I think local mods are given a few boards to see how they'd cope, and then they'd be promoted to global once they had proven they knew what they were doing. At least, that was my experience.

[eyehawk78]

How does the report system work on tip it?

 

On the Affliction boards the report is sent to all admins (online or offline) and all online global moderators. However it only provides a link to the topic and not the content of the post :evil: