Timeline for answer to Partnering with Communities to Modernize Policies & Norms by Richard
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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59 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Kilisi | @Lundin there are problems with every system, you can play with metrics until you get any answer you like, or you can just look at things pragmatically. I recognised the base issues and then watched in vague amusement as everything went exactly how I thought it would (and still is). Meanwhile everyone else was playing with metrics. | |
| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Lundin | @Kilisi There were always problems with the system. A lot of people mistook all the site traffic coming from the flood of inane homework questions as "success". But the success of a niche site can never be measured in raw site traffic and that's what the company failed to understand somewhere around year 2015. Rather, the success of sites in the SE network can be measured by the number of domain experts using the site. Domain experts in any area like to hang out with other experts, if you make a place where they can meet, then it's success and all spin-off effects from there is just a bonus. | |
| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Lundin | @Richard I don't think the site can be saved at all. In the history of the Internet, sites that start to struggle with activity tend to never recover. If it was non-profit then sure, but the company has salaries and bills to pay and the site isn't commercially viable, if it ever was. | |
| 19 hours ago | comment | added | Kilisi | @JourneymanGeek 'experienced' is relative. In my hiring days I'd sometimes prefer a bright graduate to an ex govt employee with 20 years experience. Their experience was rubbish and they often had attitude issues. | |
| 20 hours ago | comment | added | Kilisi | @Lundin you're wrong, the sites were going strongly for years, then they weren't..... cause and effect, not magic. Don't blame what was going strongly, that's the fallacy we've been fed for a while, but never made sense to me. Blame the changes that in a very short time scuppered the boat. They're not at all hard to spot. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Richard | @Lundin - What you're describing is the archetypal "we had to destroy the village to save the village". I don't think we're that far gone (yet) | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Lundin | @Richard Therein lies the problem. If you want to change culture you will first have to remake the dysfunctional rep, voting and closing systems from scratch. Then you will have to boot all veteran users, moderators or not. But that doesn't work on an existing site - you have to make a brand new site from scratch. That will solve the single biggest problem of site culture and dysfunctional user moderation, but it would also have to be started by someone else other than SO the company or we won't get rid of the other huge problem which is the company. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Richard | @Lundin - the question isn't whether having a long-standing cadre of experienced moderators is good for moderation but whether it is good in terms of promoting and engaging with the site-membership and fostering a culture of change. A supermarket with no customers would have beautifully full shelves, but no turnover of stock. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Journeyman Geek | @Kilisi I'm a mod on pets cause they lost a few mods in short periods - and I'm here, and SU's my main site. Only reason I'm not 'actively' moderating pets is cause its a quiet site. I try to keep some activity on some other site chats. The workload of smaller communitys isn't great and there's value in experienced, engaged mods helping out on more than one community. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Lundin | Diamond mods were never the problem. My experience of diamond mods across the sites, elected or not, is that most of them are quite sensible folks with highly accurate moderation. Even when constantly facing difficult stuff like potentially AI slop or spam in disguise. The main moderation problems rather come from experienced users voting, editing, closing incorrectly or just being toxic in general. It's a cultural problem created from the original flawed site design with voting and reputation. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Kilisi | I have noticed that some long standing people are mods in multiple communities. They've long ago lost focus on the communities and formed their own little power cliques with their own agendas. Perhaps people should only be allowed to mod for one community? | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Robotnik | @Sasha - "I wonder if there is some other role, separate from being a mod, that could make sense for this group?" - See my comment regarding moving some mod-only powers into new privileges unlocked by reputation. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Anyon | @Richard A few days of warning clearly seems insufficient, but the most recent (last year) election on MathOverflow was announced six months ahead of time and still only attracted three candidates. Perhaps there is an optimal lead time? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @Sasha - and If you hold elections on a schedule, rather than on ad hoc basis (with only a few days of warning), I'm certain you'll get more interested parties. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @Sasha - If they're active as mods, they should have no problems being a little more engaged with the community they're supposedly leading, not least because it already says in the mod agreement that that's what they should be doing. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Sasha StaffMod | I personally don't think it makes sense to force active mods to step down, especially when on most sites we don't have people chomping at the bit to take on those responsibilities (evidence being elections that get extended or fail because not enough people nominate themselves). However, I do agree that it would be good if there were more ways to keep high rep users engaged for the long haul. I wonder if there is some other role, separate from being a mod, that could make sense for this group? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Kilisi | @Robotnik Yeah, Cms are a waste of time though, they're out of touch with the communities (and reality half the time). I reckon the communities themselves should have more say. We vote them in, we should be able to vote them back out. Just an idea. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Robotnik | @Kilisi FWIW inactive mods are removed after 6 months, and the escalation path for issues with mods is to use the Contact form. This goes to the CMs, mods aren't involved in the process at all. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | user400654 | elections definitely last for more than a few days, isn't it closer to 2 weeks? and the more candidates there are the longer it lasts, and it's blasted all over the site where the election is happening to get as many people to participate as possible. elections aren't hidden here, they practically beg people to self nominate. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Kilisi | What about a process to de-diamond mods? If they have lost the trust of their site members then 20 votes gets them sacked. Or something similar, mod for life is not a healthy scenario, they tend to start working their own agendas and developing cliques after a while and lose sight of the community, or think they're better than the community. We got a bunch in here right now that are like that... | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Robotnik | I think youre approaching this from the wrong angle: we dont need more mods or regular elections, we need some of the "mod only" powers to be reconsidered as privilege levels. There is no real reason why "only mods" should be able to change the close reasons, award community badges, add post notices, raise metas for [status-review], remove things from HNQ, edit the help center, etc etc. The community should be able to propose these things and get them approved by other community members. Mod powers should be relegated back to the original "exceptional circumstances" / "override when necessary" | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Xander Henderson | @Richard yes, I understand that point but it is moot if you can't actually get anyone to stand for election. Where are these new mods supposed to come from? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @XanderHenderson - At the risk of repeating myself, having a regular supply of new mods, and making the existing mods more active in the community, you foster a spirit of openness to change.. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Xander Henderson | @Richard Again, how does that solve the problem? Math has had several elections in the last several years---we seem to hold an election every two years or so. In the last two elections, we were barely able to find qualified candidates to even run. So... fine. Remove the diamonds from the moderators you deem as inactive. What then. How does that solve the problem? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @XanderHenderson - They're obligated to participate or they forfeit their position. It happens now, but the guidance is that they only need to perform one 'moderation action' every six months to keep their status. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Xander Henderson | @Richard Again, I don't see how that solves the problem. If a moderator is not participating, what are you going to do about it? | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @XanderHenderson - You missed the second part of my suggestion, where mods are forced to regularly participate in maintaining the health of the site via meta discussion with members. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @user400654 - if you're only holding one election every decade, and only announcing it a few days before it happens, it's hardly surprising that you get poor participation. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Xander Henderson | @Richard I'm not sure how that is relevant. The point I was making is that Math can barely get people to stand for election, whether or not there are openings. More elections are not going to solve the problem if there is no one who actually wants to run. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | user400654 | Given 90% of mods tend to come from the same group of people who are active on meta, i doubt "term limits" will have any appreciable effect on the kinds of people that are moderators, nor on the community's ability push for change. As it is most elections don't get enough candidates for there to be any real choice anyway, even on the most active sites. More elections won't change that. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Richard | @XanderHenderson - Math:SE has a large, but largely inactive moderation team including one that stood down nearly two months ago, but still has their diamond, one that hasn't logged in for nearly two months, and one whose last action on Meta was half a decade ago. Most moderators on most stacks seem to be more than happy to simply manage the decline of their sites. | |
| 2 days ago | comment | added | Xander Henderson | Counterpoint: math has had a number of elections in recent years. The last two barely fired. There aren't a lot of qualified people who want the job. | |
| Jun 28 at 21:08 | comment | added | TheMatrix Equation-balance | @Richard - When you have a lot of very qualified people (beginnings of Stackexchange) you can afford to have a big stick that is easy to use. But when your audience is reduced and a lot of smart people have left, you might think about how to limit the power of the stick (VTC). | |
| Jun 28 at 21:03 | comment | added | Richard | @TheMatrixEquation-balance - Agreed, but that largely stems from people not RTFM. | |
| Jun 28 at 21:02 | comment | added | TheMatrix Equation-balance | Aggressive VTC (vote to close) drives a lot of good people out. No one likes to be consistently shut off. | |
| Jun 28 at 17:32 | comment | added | Dan Getz | @Richard to be fair, Hoid said the plan was to eventually not have that instant-removal clause. | |
| Jun 28 at 17:25 | comment | added | Richard | @DanGetz - Ungenerously you could describe Hoid's experiment as a way of creating a generation of 'pet' moderators, non-entitities who can be excluded from the simplified election process for any reason and none, and who can be dismissed at a whim if they step out of line. Essentially making every election a forced choice for rank and file users, and a pro-tem appointment for the mod. | |
| Jun 28 at 16:17 | comment | added | Dan Getz | Is mods not stepping aside really the impetus behind fewer elections? I thought the current election process was just too much work for the company to run as many as would be useful. Hoid and others had been working on an alternate process before they were let go, and while I had minor disagreements with its design, I understand that a big reason for it was to reduce the cost to the company and create more new mods. | |
| Jun 28 at 11:56 | history | edited | Richard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 28 at 9:00 | comment | added | Journeyman Geek | I am not. But its relevant from the view of someone who's been a non mod, mod and former mod. And I'd posit, perhaps rather than term limits, maybe we need a different scope of effective community activism, at different levels. Less focused on the mechanics and culture perhaps. We'd want people passionate about community evanglism to stick around as long as possible I'd think. | |
| Jun 28 at 8:25 | comment | added | Richard | @JourneymanGeek - I'm not entirely sure how that's relevant (are you trying to shame me?), but yes, I'll happily agree that our new mods are more competent at moderation duties. They have, however, done dramatically less to promote the site. As a non-mod, my ability to push for effective change is also dramatically diminished. | |
| Jun 28 at 8:14 | comment | added | Journeyman Geek | Also, as a former mod, did you no longer being a mod, in your view improve the site measureably? | |
| Jun 28 at 7:27 | comment | added | Richard | @PM2Ring - And while that's laudable, that site has had one competitive election since its creation over a decade ago. | |
| Jun 28 at 3:52 | comment | added | PM 2Ring | It depends on the community. In the 2025 election on Astronomy.SE, both of the old remaining moderators stepped down. astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1021 | |
| Jun 28 at 0:55 | comment | added | Journeyman Geek | We do push for change quite a lot. We don't always get traction but I do think to an extent, in the current environment changing aspects of the status quo is essential. Its thankless, but outside a few core pillars (Plagiarism for example) - I think mods would appreciate well thought out requests for change. Even more so if we could effectively get the company to listen and understand what our needs are. | |
| Jun 27 at 22:56 | comment | added | Richard | @jen - I have noticed that moderators (like yourself) often say things like that. Next you'll be telling me that 'moderators are merely janitors', and that 'the position isn't actually all that prestigious' | |
| Jun 27 at 22:19 | comment | added | jen | Moderators are followers. The community leads. | |
| Jun 27 at 15:39 | comment | added | Richard | @JourneymanGeek - They do a pretty good job of enforcing the status quo, acting as a brake on rash or ill-though-out decisions, but also stymieing community-led efforts to improve their sites. Since they're an aristocratic class, SE have (unintentionally?) created a system where moderators have very little incentive on them to push for change and lots of incentive to resist it. | |
| Jun 27 at 14:43 | comment | added | Journeyman Geek | I guess the question is if moderators are actively driving away users (bad), being too efficient (uhh good?) or somehow tenure itself is bad. We've not asked for new mods on SU (cause we can handle the workload) and we run on replacement levels on pets (but I'd feel safer with one more). That said, if there was a popular policy that I personally disagreed with - I'd throw it a status review at the right time. That said, I'd argue that with projects dropped half way a lot of time, maybe mods arn't why proposals don't go ahead? | |
| Jun 27 at 14:39 | comment | added | Ramhound | You don’t need to be a moderator to help moderate the community, as long as elected community moderators are active enough to do those task that require their abilities, the community should be doing the majority of the community moderation. If elected moderators are doing the majority of the work the community isn’t involved and that’s when you start to have issues. | |
| Jun 27 at 11:25 | comment | added | Richard | @ChesterGillon - One of the problems with asking meta:SE if term limits or increasing moderator numbers would be of interest is that large number of meta:SE voters are themselves moderators. Turkeys aren't going to vote for Christmas | |
| Jun 27 at 10:51 | comment | added | Chester Gillon | Related : Should moderator elections be automatically held? (e.g. at least once every X years? when there are < Y mods? etc.) | |
| Jun 27 at 10:49 | history | edited | Richard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 27 at 10:44 | comment | added | Richard | @starball - A greater turnover of mods would create a greater sense of ownership of the site from active users (who now stand more than an inkling of a chance of becoming a mod) and less entrenched resistance to change from mods who are now forced to regularly engage with users in meta discussion | |
| Jun 27 at 10:28 | comment | added | starball Mod | if you find yourself fighting against the people leading it, somehow I don't think that's going to change whether you have a diamond. on the bright(?) side, it sounds like the company is interested in policy and norm changes here. | |
| Jun 27 at 10:05 | comment | added | Richard | @starball - on movies:SE it took more than five meta questions to finally convince the moderators to remove the 'banal triviality' close reason. On SFF:SE we're still begging for the fourth close reason to reflect meta opinion. You can't steer the ship from the engine room. | |
| Jun 27 at 10:03 | comment | added | Richard | @starball - sure, but it's a lot easier to a) build your community if you're leading it b) build your community if you're not actively having to fight against the people leading it | |
| Jun 27 at 9:37 | comment | added | starball Mod | (playing devil's advocate, sorry!) there are a lot leadership-like / community-building / community-protecting things one can do without the mod hat :) it's quite possible to be very engaged without it. you don't really need a diamond to discuss site policy / topicality | |
| Jun 27 at 9:28 | history | answered | Richard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
