More moderators needed

[mrmyk]

So just because a moderator hasn't locked a thread in a while, doesn't mean they're doing nothing... that's all I'm trying to say.

 

 

 

I don't see what's so hard to understand with that, just to be honest.

 

 

 

Moderators are the police of tip.it, even though some crime occurs it is usually sorted out in the end and people get sorted out depending on the crime. Moderators are also like police because, although they are always working hard, just because one bad incident occurs, it is believed that they aren't doing there job. Work behind the scenes is important guys (and gals);).

[insane]

So just because a moderator hasn't locked a thread in a while, doesn't mean they're doing nothing... that's all I'm trying to say.

 

 

 

I don't see what's so hard to understand with that, just to be honest.

 

 

 

What's hard to understand is that you would make a post like the one you just did. Your "honesty" is quite demeaning to Satenza, and anyone else that doesn't understand how a moderator that hasn't posted publicly in a month would be considered "active" by any degree. You speak as if we're a bunch of ignorant users. Well, guess what? I've been there, done that, and Satenza is correct by my experience. Darkrick too. Moderators that aren't posting publicly or locking topics probably aren't moving topics or posting on the other hidden boards. It doesn't make sense that someone would go a month, doing all these non-public moderator actions without locking a single post. So "just to be honest", your post was useless and condescending. Tripsis explained herself, and we understand her point. There's no need to come along, agree with her, and tell us that we're stupid for not understanding. We understand. Don't assume we're stupid. Maybe you should try harder to understand OUR point of view instead of just strutting around.

[Dragontotem]

well im sorry that my iq is a tad lower than average, and im sorry if you felt like i was being offensive in anyway, as that's not what i meant.

 

 

 

 

Tripsis explained herself, and we understand her point

 

 

 

Yet when anybody else explained it, you go 'but but but ' which pretty much tells me that you didn't understand her point.

 

and i never said anyone was stupid, did i? Just said what was in my mind after reading this thread all over, and yea, i do get your point, i get staff members point, just because i dont say so doesn't mean im [cabbage]head who only licks up to admins just to get some favouritism, and if you dont like it, it's not my problem, you can just ignore me as much as you wish.

[____]

Where you get this "but but but

[Mercifull]

Why cant you just give Crewbies moderator powers? I mean surely they have already proven themselves to be trustworthy and are very active members of the community.

[Albosky]

They have enough to do already and we don't want them to feel obligated to start moderating the forums as well.

 

 

 

By not having the ability to do so, guarantees that.

[Artemis1330]

Satenza still raises a good point. A larger "show of force" always helps deter bad posts. Show of force on the forums would be more posts by people with moderator/official sigs and avatars. I am not saying anything about possible inactive mods or mod recruiting. Half a police officers job is done just by being around- "hey lets go rob that store" "no way, there are cops that put you in jail for that". Let the spammers/kids/key loggers go to a forum that has no "cops".

 

 

 

To be quite honest, I'm growing rather tired of finding countless topics telling us that we need more moderators.

 

 

 

This would also help reduce the amount of posts asking for more mods. More mods posting makes it seem like there are a lot of mods AND that they are reading the forums (i.e. - patrolling posts for bad content).

 

 

 

Everyone makes it seem like you just pick a users name out of a hat and give them moderator status.

 

 

 

I have not read anywhere in this topic that people think moderators are "picked out of a hat". I have NEVER encountered a mod I would accuse this of. All the mods I know of are respectful and do a great job.

 

 

 

If the community wasn't being overrun by little punks that insist on posting that garbage, we wouldn't NEED any moderators...

 

 

 

Most tip.iters I see post are a good part of the community. Remember the primary age group here. Even if the majority of these "punks" make up the smallest age group, it is because of their age that they do so. Put yourself in the shoes of a 10-14 year old (I am more then twice this age, sorry if I get it wrong :XD: )-They probably just do not think (consciously) before they post. Their unconscious brain realizes that a bad post gets them nothing more then a warning by someone they do not know/see on a forum they have no physical connection with. Great I got banned from the forums, time to make a new tip.it account. Or- "o well, banned from tip.it, guess IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ll head over to rune hq." No real life, physical connection, or emotionally destabilizing punishment means a few immature people think nothing is wrong with what they do. Welcome to the internet.

 

 

 

BUT, don't forget, this is also the same community that we have to select the moderators from. How are we supposed to add more moderators from an ever growing pile of users that we can barely trust to post properly?

 

 

 

That's always going to be tricky. Like I said above, no REAL connection means some people think nothing is wrong with lying, bad behavior, etc. However, I have never found tip.it, or even Jagex, to pick a bad moderator. Whatever you have been doing, keep it up. I think it works great.

 

 

 

Edit- sorry for singeing out you Albosky, your one post summed up everyone elseÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s nicely, making for easy quoting :P

 

 

 

Edit2-This is the entire reason I was going to post here, and I completely forgot to even write it in! :lol:

 

As for key logger help, I see a few solutions. First, you could simply not allow users below a certain post count to post links. A bit extreme I think. Second, you could flag posts with links posted by users with a certain post count (specifically new users). When new users post a topic or post with a link, it flags the moderators; someone looks at the post/link and determines if it is ok or a threat. Another way to do this would be anytime a new user post a link, that link/post must first be reviewed by a mod. It really depends on the capabilities of this forum technically.

[InkofDeath]

By not having the ability to do so, guarantees that.

 

Yes, but that's overkill.

 

 

 

They won't feel obligated since they already have the common sense to understand the concept of why your giving them the ability.

[McGuff1]

A larger "show of force" always helps deter bad posts. Show of force on the forums would be more posts by people with moderator/official sigs and avatars.

 

I don't think you can compare us to policemen walking the beat. I'm not going to post on a lot of topics "I'm here" just so people know I am. Don't assume we're not reading topics if we don't post to them. If I do post to a topic it's probably for a good reason. And yes there is a lot of work behind the scenes that you can't see or post count.

[Artemis1330]

A larger "show of force" always helps deter bad posts. Show of force on the forums would be more posts by people with moderator/official sigs and avatars.

 

I don't think you can compare us to policemen walking the beat. I'm not going to post on a lot of topics "I'm here" just so people know I am. Don't assume we're not reading topics if we don't post to them. If I do post to a topic it's probably for a good reason. And yes there is a lot of work behind the scenes that you can't see or post count.

 

 

 

I was not comparing moderators to them as much as I was using that as an example. I could have used School hall monitors, Security guards, or even managers at an office. The idea however is still the same. Just being around helps to deter a large amount of bad posts and behavior.

 

 

 

I didnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t assume that mods do not read or anything like that. I realize that a large amount of the tip.it community likes to read, and rarely post. Moderators should not be one of those people. As another example- If a police officer/hall monitor/security guard/manager/or any other person with the duty to reduce and solve problems only came out to respond to an issue (bad thread, post, signature, whatever) then there would be a high amount of bad activity. One of the best deterrents is a constant reminder to do the right thing, especially in an internet community with little to no real life connection.

 

 

 

I think the best way to do this is to simply reply to a topic, if only to say "grats". Others see the moderator symbol and are unconsciously reminded of their presence. All in all reducing and deterring bad behavior.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Why cant you just give Crewbies moderator powers? I mean surely they have already proven themselves to be trustworthy and are very active members of the community.

 

Because we're not suitable to be mods. To an extent, you have to have a certain confidence that you know you're right in writing what you write on the main site to be a Crewbie. Call that arrogance if you want, but mods tend to be more open-minded than that.

 

 

 

Also, our role isn't on Tip.It forums. We just use Tip.It forums to gather information. Our job is on the main site. Therefore, being a respected member of the community isn't as important as the actual skills we possess.

 

 

 

Finally, many already feel we have too much power already. I could hypothetically speaking on onto mIRC now and kick off all the users which don't have a rank. Of course, I won't, but that seems a lot of power for someone to have, especially when mIRC has nothing to do with our work in the first place. Many on Tip.It would feel giving us mod powers on the forums (apart from on the boards we actually need to have them) would be inappropriate because it gives us too much power.

 

 

 

So that's why Crewbies don't have mod powers. Frankly, I don't believe we should be expected to moderate the forums either. It's not that I don't want to help, it's just that I have enough work to do as it is.

[tripsis]

Why cant you just give Crewbies moderator powers? I mean surely they have already proven themselves to be trustworthy and are very active members of the community.

 

 

 

Crew members already work exceptionally hard the way it is. I'm sure a lot of them barely have enough time for their website work, let alone moderating the forum as well.

[insane]

Why cant you just give Crewbies moderator powers? I mean surely they have already proven themselves to be trustworthy and are very active members of the community.

 

 

 

Crew members already work exceptionally hard the way it is. I'm sure a lot of them barely have enough time for their website work, let alone moderating the forum as well.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think Merc was saying that it should be mandatory to moderate as a crewbie; I think he was just saying that since they are trustworthy, it would be good if they had moderators powers so in incidents like the keylogger emergencies we would have extra people around to put out the fire. For emergency use only, so to speak.

[InkofDeath]

As insane said, and what it seems tripsis, and others are arguing back is that adding a mod power to their powers would be a negative, and a more stressful addition to them.

 

 

 

We're not saying they are obligated, or they already have to much power, we're saying it because its a plus to them, and to the us, the users. No, they can ignore every single topic that needs to be locked without a second thought about it, and they can go on with their work/browsing the forums. It's just something that they could have at their disposal to use in emergencies. When a topic goes unchecked for 20 minutes, they could, if they wanted do something about it.

 

 

 

It doesn't even have to be locking topics, it could be editing posts only as well.

 

 

 

It's like me having the option to be cruel, it's there, but I probably won't use it.

 

 

 

*Cruel is a good example, though it is sort of a negative example...*

[RayOxide]

I find it's annoying that majority of the Moderators on Tip.It aren't from Australia, out of say, the 50 mods there are, there are only about 4 on when I'm on. I think we need some Aussie Mod's. :

[tripsis]

I find it's annoying that majority of the Moderators on Tip.It aren't from Australia, out of say, the 50 mods there are, there are only about 4 on when I'm on. I think we need some Aussie Mod's. :

 

 

 

That's one of the goals of the moderator applications ;) We're hoping to get the moderators more evenly spread throughout the timezones.

[Ard_Choille]

My turn to drop in my two-cents worth.

 

 

 

Regarding Time-Zone Coverage

 

I agree that we need to balance out the coverage of moderators for the variety of time zones. We are taking this into consideration with the moderator applications and are always on the lookout for potential active users who are in some of the least-covered zones.

 

 

 

Regarding Perceived Staff Activity

 

I will say from personal experience that after performing daily moderator duties I often don't have time to post casually. I will say that if a moderator is active with moderator duties, it probably takes away from their casual posting frequency.

 

 

 

Regarding Crew Having Moderator Permissions

 

Crew members are committed to the website. They have enough work to do and we need them focused on the website. The last thing we want to do is give them more work.

 

 

 

As For Monitoring Moderator Activity

 

It is a constant effort but please realize that we must respect that everyone has a life outside of these forums. Our staff members are doing their duties here voluntarily.

 

 

 

I can appreciate the initial intention of this thread but bickering about what constitutes an "active moderator" really isn't constructive.

 

 

 

- Ard

[Kaphias]

Regarding Crew Having Moderator Permissions

 

Crew members are committed to the website. They have enough work to do and we need them focused on the website. The last thing we want to do is give them more work.

 

I really didn't want to dive into this, but this make me have to...

 

We aren't looking for them to moderate the forums, we want them to have moderator abilities so in the case of an emergency they can lock the topic, remove bad link, etc. We all know that the crew browses and posts on the forum, why shouldn't a select few have this ability?

[-Devoted12-]

There aren't too many mods from any timezone. If you look at the posts on this forum, you will see other users suggesting more mods because (Insert Timezone Here) isn't modded enough.

 

The mod trainee program was created, like stated before, to help resolve this problem. Either way, there will ALWAYS be times where mods aren't on and a post needs to be locked, moved, removed, etc. There is no way to avoid this. This community is such a huge community consisting of so many members that there has to be a couple of posts which will slip for a small period of time. The main thing you need to know is that a lot of mods are either:

 

• 
   
  [*:37aydi5j]Hidden, so you are not capable of seeing them
   
  [*:37aydi5j]Doing other jobs that aren't publicly seen. (There is a lot more jobs such as this than you would think
   
  [*:37aydi5j]Or just on vacation

 

 

 

I find it funny how many users get upset if a post doesn't get locked within (enter time period here). Compare it to others forums or even real life and that is amazingly fast. We have only a small ammount of volunteers to handle over 160,000 members. That is a city in some places. Do police officers catch and punish most criminals in that period of time with it still being justified? I don't think so. I think our system is wonderful and it is very fast. Our decisions are justified and we do it with amazing speed.

 

 

 

I would like to just add that if you see a post that is against our rules or should be removed, just report it. Once a mod comes online, then we will take care of it in a swift, justified manner. Until then, just avoid the post and act like it was never there. Posting saying, "this will be locked, This is spam" etc. isn't helping the situation either, so make sure not to do either of those. Just use the nifty report function that we have and let us take care of it. :)

 

 

 

 

 

In response to Kaphias:

 

Crew members are busy as it is. We need them fully commited to the site so that you can recieve such awesome updates such as the recent ones. It's just the same thing with moderators as it is to crew members. I don't have the ability to edit the site because my main job is to keep this forums clean. It's the same for them, their main job is to keep the site running and keeping everything up to date. Wait until the Mod Trainees come around. There is no need to be assigning new abilities when they are coming soon.

[____]

Regarding Perceived Staff Activity

 

I will say from personal experience that after performing daily moderator duties I often don't have time to post casually. I will say that if a moderator is active with moderator duties, it probably takes away from their casual posting frequency.

Considering you ended up as an admin, that is perfectly understandable; but from personal experience that's not the case for most.

 

 

 

There have been plenty of mods in the past (myself included) who never had any problems performing their duties while remaing active within the community. Login, check resported posts, deal with them if needs be, check pm's in required, then start browsing the forums like a normal user. In the course of doing that if you happen to run into something that needs attention, so be it; and shock-horror: post if you feel like it.

 

 

 

 

 

And - I'm really going to stress this point - if daily moderator duties take up all of your time while on the forum, then you most likely aren't active enough in the first place. The two things (moderating and being a user) are practically intertwined.

[Mercifull]

Why cant you just give Crewbies moderator powers? I mean surely they have already proven themselves to be trustworthy and are very active members of the community.

Crew members already work exceptionally hard the way it is. I'm sure a lot of them barely have enough time for their website work, let alone moderating the forum as well.

 

I don't think Merc was saying that it should be mandatory to moderate as a crewbie; I think he was just saying that since they are trustworthy, it would be good if they had moderators powers so in incidents like the keylogger emergencies we would have extra people around to put out the fire. For emergency use only, so to speak.

My point exactly. thanks

[jemathonical]

Why have hidden mods? Do they do BTS work and aren't identified so that people don't pm them?

 

I never really understood.

[Mercifull]

I agree with Ricks points entirely about moderating and being a user.

 

 

 

ForsakenMage

 

Pyro

 

RSN Lead

 

Herr

 

darkrick

 

Dusqi

 

Wyrm

 

 

 

Few off the top of my head old school mods and admins who had no problem staying active members of the community while as staff. Whats so different about all the new people which means they cannot?

[darkblade986]

Regarding Crew Having Moderator Permissions

 

Crew members are committed to the website. They have enough work to do and we need them focused on the website. The last thing we want to do is give them more work.

 

I really didn't want to dive into this, but this make me have to...

 

We aren't looking for them to moderate the forums, we want them to have moderator abilities so in the case of an emergency they can lock the topic, remove bad link, etc. We all know that the crew browses and posts on the forum, why shouldn't a select few have this ability?

 

 

 

I won't argue the point any further; I'll just express what my idea was and let Albosky handle it as he sees.

 

 

 

This was essentially what my thought was behind us crew getting moderator powers. We won't be considered moderators and we won't make the casual decisions regarding things like spam or something. All we will do is be there in case of an emergency (such as the keylogger incidents of last week).

 

 

 

For the keylogger incidents, I was online within 5 minutes of them being posted and could've easily taken them and deleted them while someone else came in and banned the user. Sometimes a moderator isn't online, but a crew member is. Just because a person from one area of the staff isn't online shouldn't mean that something from their department will have to wait until someone does log in. We already have that with the crew, where we can help clear out submissions from other areas of the site, why shouldn't we be able to help the moderators as well, albeit in extreme circumstances only.

[chris1216]

I agree with Ricks points entirely about moderating and being a user.

 

 

 

ForsakenMage

 

Pyro

 

RSN Lead

 

Herr

 

darkrick

 

Dusqi

 

Wyrm

 

 

 

Few off the top of my head old school mods and admins who had no problem staying active members of the community while as staff. Whats so different about all the new people which means they cannot?

 

 

 

The better question is, why do they need to? It's clearly a matter of choice, and from what I've read the only reason people want them to post more actively is to give the perception that there is an extremely active moderating team as a deterrent to spammers.

 

 

 

I'm fairly certain that inappropriate and spam messages/topics will be posted regardless of whether or not we perceive an extremely active moderating team. I think you're being fairly demanding of people that volunteer their time on this forum.