Improving the modding system.

[buzzinbee]

Ok many people may see no problem with the system for modding players but seeing as we are making a few changes such as asking for permission for being put into a voting thread I think it could be beneficial to have a thread seeing if we can think of any other ways in which we can improve the way people are modded.

 

Ok I'd just like to start it off by putting out the idea of removing negative comments put into the brainstorming threads. Pros: When players are modded they then don't suddenly get offended by anything they might see eg oh I think such and such is way too immature for this position, It would stop players having negative opinions on staff members and it would also make it easier for current staff members to voice their concerns without worrying about offending someone when they are modded. Cons: It is believed that if you are modded you should be able to handle seeing this sort of thing, it can also sometimes work as constructive criticism and make the player try and focus on improving that aspect of themselves. Another con would be that it will of course add more work for people to have to go through the sometimes very long threads reading all the comments to remove them.

 

This is just my idea, if you have any concerns with this idea please voice them and also please give any ideas you may have to improve the system.

[Ozomahtlii]

When you say removing them, do you mean removing them just before the suggested mods get modded, or as in not being allowed to voice negative opinions on suggested players?

If it's the latter then we'd just see a lot more names put in the real nomination list and a lot of no votes from the people that would have voiced negative opinions.

 

I suppose you mean the first but just wanted to make sure

[buzzinbee]

Yeah I mean the first one. We could alternatively just move them up to an archive for head admins in case something crops up they can refer to that at a later point. 

[TheRandomnatrix]

I don't think negative comments should be removed for exactly the reasons stated: that staff should be mature enough to handle negative criticism. When I became modded, I was told that I might not like all the staff members, that I might even hate some. But I still have to act professional(at least when going about business as staff) and mature, and get along with the people I work with. There's going to be people outside of staff who may say things that aren't nearly as constructive and much more malicious. If they can't deal with peer review then I would have low hopes for their ability to cope with being called such things.

 

As for the argument as to whether or not to ask potential mods if they want to be publicly voted on, I'd be willing to lean more on asking them first. While I haven't been on the receiving end of getting put on the spot by the staff only to receive a large amount of negative votes, I can imagine it wouldn't be that great. Just make sure to point out when asking that it's not guaranteed you'll become a staff member, and that even being asked should be considered positive. If they handle the rejection in a mature way then all the more input for the next round of nominations.

[uni0]

I agree with TheRandomnatrix. I just think we should keep reminding ourselves that future mods may see the comments and to keep our feedback as professional as possible. In the past I've called some candidates "immature", I have no problem going face to face with them if they became mods and explaining why I thought of that, and I'm sure we'd still be friends.

 

I really dislike the idea of hand picking or "censoring" content, it sets a not-so-pretty precedent in the grand theme of transparency. Lets just keep our comments constructive and professional.

[buzzinbee]

The main benefit I had behind it is that, people are then no longer under pressure to genuinely speak their mind about certain players. Ok for instance if your friend's name pops up in a thread but you don't think your friend should be modded, you are expected to act maturely about it and put in the reasoning behind it, however some of it you may not want to put in as if they became a mod they may (wrongly) question how loyal you are to them. This is an odd example but this can happen. Or at least if mods were allowed to go through before the players were modded and remove their own comments they have made. 

[ROCKONN]

Everything we post about potential, current, and past mods should always have an informational basis. Unless it's "He's stoop1d, I h8 him lotz!" it's important that we keep such criticisms, regardless of whether or not the person eventually joins the staff team. Despite the fact that we're still players, just with more direct responsibility for the servers/community, we must keep in mind that we hold a certain position for everyone else to observe. We set the standard, and while we should always stay friendly/social with anyone we can, we must think of the positions we hold first. To compromise those positions with such ideas as censorship (even in the interest of protecting someone's feelings or the relationship between certain people) is not something we should allow ourselves to do in any format, with the exceptions of a major source of offensive material, the leaking of personal information, or a targeted assault against a group/individual.

 

Anyone we entrust these responsibilities to should have the maturity to accept anything said about them, be able to recognize the ramifications of the previous actions they've taken, and be able to improve themselves based on it. Granted, it may take some more time than others to do so, some not ever being able to, but these are points I've come to believe should never be compromised.

[emptyafternoon]

Agree with everything that's been already said about mods reading through negative comments about them in nomination threads: mods should be able to handle the negative criticism, not hold grudges, etc. as long as nomination discussion is also constructive.

 

As for the voting, I agree with what Denevien said in the other thread:

Voting should happen in Mod Chat Private, and then only announce those that are accepted.  Especially since almost all of the people that get nominated get in anyways... It's true that we keep the nomination commentary private, why not the votes as well?  I honestly don't understand the reason for making the voting thread public in the first place.  Maybe some of the longer-standing mods or admins can shed some light?

 

In any case, this method allows us to only approach people after being voted in.  Then we can say, "Hey, you've been voted in!" at which point they can accept and go through training or decline.  Seems like the most logical/least messy approach to me.

[ROCKONN]

The point of making the voting portion public was to show the community that they have a say in how things work, and that it's not some secret cult running the place for their own ends.

 

Keeping the nomination list public, or private, has its ups and downs either way. That's just the law of unintended consequences for you.

[kitcatbar]

As for voting in private, I don't agree with that. People are concerned about transparency, so we're going to hide something that's always been public? I don't see enough of a benefit to make that change. I'm all for having a pretty solid consensus of who should be allowed into voting, so we don't have so many negative votes like last time. If they hardly have support in private, we can't expect them to get a positive response in public voting.

[uni0]

I'm not comfortable with hiding the voting, it would make the process less accountable and less transparent to the community. We had a big discussion where there was clear consensus that the community wanted to get more involved and have more influence in how their server is run and by whom. We need to work towards that goal. 

[MasterCommaThe]

Putting the nominees up in Mod Chat public allows regular players to voice serious concerns prior to someone becoming a moderator, where-in they may suppress criticism if they are ill-willed.

As long as criticisms are based on factual evidence, and we are fair (according to the communitee, not the single player being criticized) in our valuation of their faults with regards to how that will affect their ability to moderate, then I think we're doing our job right. I would not mind having my comments made completely public, but don't believe most players would find the community welcoming if they are subject to public scrutiny. I feel we have good justification for keeping the discussions in mod-chat private, privately communicating our justifications to the player criticized if they ask why they were not elected after being nominated, and not deleting any comments once a player is elected.

[TheRandomnatrix]

For starters, I'd like to see some sort of consensus brought up(if there isn't one already) for the criteria and factors on how we go about selecting mods after they've been voted on. Is it a hard number like 2/3 majority, or is it done "by gut?" The less ambiguity the better IMO.

 

I'm not comfortable with hiding the voting, it would make the process less accountable and less transparent to the community. We had a big discussion where there was clear consensus that the community wanted to get more involved and have more influence in how their server is run and by whom. We need to work towards that goal. 

 

Cannot agree more.

 

 

I'm all for having a pretty solid consensus of who should be allowed into voting, so we don't have so many negative votes like last time. If they hardly have support in private, we can't expect them to get a positive response in public voting.

 

The question that bugs me then is how do we go about reaching consensus in an effective manner that doesn't more or less reduce to private voting? Clearly this was not the case last round, as not one but two players received over 2/3 votes negative, one being 82% against. That doesn't seem like consensus to me on the private side of things. Perhaps it was a fluke and the system is already the best we can have, but I'd prefer for a fluke like that to not happen again. But if we reach consensus anyways, then what's the point in making the vote other than accountability?

[Tharine]

For starters, I'd like to see some sort of consensus brought up(if there isn't one already) for the criteria and factors on how we go about selecting mods after they've been voted on. Is it a hard number like 2/3 majority, or is it done "by gut?" The less ambiguity the better IMO.

 

+1 for this, as well as to request better handling and discussion of how we're going to look at selecting the people who do get nominated this time around. We simply can't afford to stagger our mod nominations by three people only each time for Survival, and I know several others were surprised to find that we had made this restriction last time. There was a huge show of support from people who would love to help out training new moderators, so this shouldn't be of any ongoing concern. Hand any of us the notes you usually follow to introduce new moderators to the role and we'd be glad to take it off your hands if it meant we could get more moderators on board where necessary.

 

The question that bugs me then is how do we go about reaching consensus in an effective manner that doesn't more or less reduce to private voting? Clearly this was not the case last round, as not one but two players received over 2/3 votes negative, one being 82% against. That doesn't seem like consensus to me on the private side of things. Perhaps it was a fluke and the system is already the best we can have, but I'd prefer for a fluke like that to not happen again. But if we reach consensus anyways, then what's the point in making the vote other than accountability?

 

I think a lot of the issue lies in the fact that there were so many people who just didn't know GMMan_BZFlag or HailSaban well enough to fully support them, so they had to vote no. Additionally, we've always been instructed not to comment with a reason when we say no which, whilst a bit different now with our current setup (as it's a proper poll now), really hinders getting a proper understanding of why they were turned down. I very much doubt that 82% of our staffing team has a real issue with HailSaban - perhaps a small number do, but i'd be willing to bet the majority of those no votes were "I don't know" votes. The poll at face value doesn't represent our actual reason for turning him down, which is really unfortunate for him and everyone else. Maybe allowing an option to vote 'Not familiar enough to vote either way' would help with this?

[Guest Former Staff]

I would just like to interject and say that I'm watching this topic avidly, there has not been a point raised so far that has not been important. Once more people have had a chance to reflect upon the ideas presented above and provide new directions for us to approach the moderator nomination process, I'll reply back here where we can start to agree on which changes, however subtle, would be best.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I would like to see this topic moved over into the archive after we have decided on which changes would be best, together. This way we can reveal the changes and show our discussion.

[buzzinbee]

 

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I would like to see this topic moved over into the archive after we have decided on which changes would be best, together. This way we can reveal the changes and show our discussion.

Agreed. also

 

 Maybe allowing an option to vote 'Not familiar enough to vote either way' would help with this?

I'd love to see that implemented.

[schererererer]

The "Not familiar enough" vote is intentionally rolled into the no votes to provide a measure of anonymity to the "hard no" votes. Initially, we didn't have such a fleshed out nomination process, and the debate on people happened more behind the scenes. It was basically the status quo that people who saw no votes attached to their name would infer that they were not well known, potentially avoiding friction.

The most recent results were surprising because over the past year or so we've typically come to a consensus over nominees in the nomination thread itself. Today we show support in the thread, rather than restrict it to new nominations and objections alone, as it was previously.

[WayneByNumbers]

It seems odd that people would want an "I don't know, so I don't say yea or nay" option when one already exists.  Staff members are not required to vote in these things, and those who do are not required to vote on everybody (at least, I don't think so, I can't recall just now exactly how the polls work).  What's wrong with just not voting on those who you don't feel comfortable voting on?

[MasterCommaThe]

I think there may be some confusion on whether we should vote "No" or simply abstain from commenting on a person if we don't know them well enough. I thought our policy was to say "No" and that abstaining wasn't part of the process. I personally would  prefer if we have a 3 category system ("Yes", "No", "Abstain"). I would like for us to have our process written (pinned in the forums/website/wiki) for what consensus constitutes a successful election (barring veto from Admins). Explicit discussion of a candidate's reliability should be kept in mod chat private, but need not be deleted/censored. This should not be a problem assuming we've elected someone with a level head able to accept appropriate criticism. and that criticism is made by staff who also have shown they have a level head and present facts and observations.

[kitcatbar]

If you don't know someone, shouldn't that be a no vote? How can you justify giving mod perms to someone that only a few people know and support?

 

To me an "Abstain" vote is unnecessary, since like scher said, it is included in the no vote for good reason.

[WayneByNumbers]

To perhaps clarify what I meant in my post, I wasn't calling for a third "No Opinion" option to be added to the poll itself (though that might be nice), I was talking about actually abstaining.  Not to make a disturbing example of myself, but I haven't actually, in my time here, ever cast a vote on the nominees.  Being, at best, a rather distant member of the community, I didn't feel I was familiar enough with any of them to be able to offer any kind of informed opinion, and I didn't want to just put up a post (as the votes went in the old forums) or put my name in the polls voting "No" to everybody.

 

Also of concern (to echo MasterCommaThe) is that it may not be properly understood by everybody that "No" votes may be out of simple unfamiliarity.  That could potentially be addressed by stating that policy in the beginning of voting threads in no uncertain terms.  Much has been said, though, about the potential for injured pride or misinterpretation, and I wonder whether that could be sufficiently solved even by such an explanation.

 

Another potential issue comes to mind; if we add a neutral option, or publicly make it policy to withhold votes on simply "I don't know them well enough," that will make it all too clear the opinions of anybody who then does vote in the negative.  But I suppose that's the idea of transparency.  It's just that right now, we seem to have the worst of both worlds.

[MasterCommaThe]

Ah, I see now that you didn't want a third category, please take that as my own idea then. I think a person not being known holds probably a fourth of the weight of any actual concern (a true "no" vote). Furthermore I wouldn't be terribly concerned with any abstain votes from staff on servers the player never plays on as they will not be likely to moderate there either. I'm a solid example of that as almost all of my time is spent on Creative or the planning servers. We have server specific admins, so it surprises me that we don't have server specific moderator positions. Just another thought.

[Cyotie911]

Okay, I seem to have either misread something, or this thread has derailed.  Are we talking about the "brainstorming" thread... Or the "Voting" thread.  Buzzinbee originally was talking about the brainstorming thread but somehow it has swayed towards the Voting thread, which if I remember correctly was supposed to be a "yes"- with a possible reason attached to it, or "no"- with nothing after it.

[TheRandomnatrix]

For starters, I'd like to see some sort of consensus brought up(if there isn't one already) for the criteria and factors on how we go about selecting mods after they've been voted on. Is it a hard number like 2/3 majority, or is it done "by gut?" The less ambiguity the better IMO.

 

Requesting an update on this, as my inquiry still hasn't been answered.

[Guest Former Staff]

Requesting an update on this, as my inquiry still hasn't been answered.

 

Sorry this question wasn't answered sooner. From what I've seen in the previous nomination round there were a number of factors for people being chosen / not chosen after the voting thread ended.

 

People who received an overwhelming majority were a natural choice for the moderating team, I'm not aware of a set percentage that is enforced for people to meet as a criteria though it has been based on the majority of the votes and looking further into how people voted for each nominee, such as people who clearly have never interacted with the person being voted upon, as opposed to others who have. There are instances where a detrimental piece of information comes to light from one of the nominees which raises a discussion before confronting the person in question for clarity before making a decision.

 

I imagine the other head admins who have been involved with more nominee threads may be able to provide more of an insight.