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Kath-H
Kath-H
Inspiring
August 7, 2009
Answered

Moderation in this forum

  • August 7, 2009
  • 12 replies
  • 43646 views

OK, here goes.


For a long time there has been little or no evidence of any hosts, moderators or Adobe employees in here. John C and kanguyen make very welcome appearances from time to time, and both show an immaculate attitude, but little happens to improve things - although thanks to those who made a proper sticky about the use of this forum.


We have been relieved of a host who was allegedly a Community Expert in 'Creative Suite', but had apparently fulfilled none of the criteria for a Community Expert - such as being an expert in something. Nor did this person have more than a very wobbly grasp of how the forums actually work. With zero credibility, said person annoyed people by moralising and lecturing at them.


So now we have a pretty bolshy group of people who are sitting about, kicking their heels, hoping against hope that someone will sort out this buggy, defective software. Many have made very detailed, constructive suggestions and requests, others have gone to the trouble of making work-arounds. In the meantime they are chatting amongst themselves, which is normal behaviour for bored people in a waiting room who are still hoping for something to happen.


There are people who have used the WebX forums for years and years and appreciated them, even with their faults. These people are still grumpy about being shifted onto something they see as much worse. So there are bad moods around.


In my personal opinion, there have been quite a lot of posts, probably some of them mine, that are unnecessarily off-topic, sarcastic and hostile. A bit of a tug on the reins would be no bad thing in my view.


However, moderating a group such as the one gathered here is not easy. To be successful, it is necessary to show good humour, a sense of humour, a willingness to explain actions, and a degree of courtesy and respect, even to those who are not behaving particularly well at the time. Oz was a shining example, and brought a considerable degree of order to the Lounge (an even wilder corner of the West ) without antagonising anyone - well, maybe just the one serial reprobate who is unreachable anyway.


The proverbial 'firm but fair' - and a very nice bloke.


To suddenly begin mass deletions, without showing any of these qualities, may well be counter-productive.


For me, Jochem has a head start, since I believe he is the possessor of a minor-planet-sized brain and the skills to sort this mess out in minutes if he were given the chance. Good start. Now we need a better balance between discouragement of excessive pointless and snarky posts, information about what progress is being made / might be made / won't be made on forum fixes and improvements, individual help like JC has always provided for people who have weird stuff going on with their account, and a degree of visible humanity - please - to gain the consent of those being moderated.

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer

      I still can't get past the idea that "discussion" was invited and yet at the same time not needed.

      Jochem,

      I don't understand how you can be so hard-headed and stubborn!  I do understand that when we, any of us, do something, we generally feel we are correct in our actions.  BUT that does NOT mean we cannot learn from others and see that perhaps what we *thought* was correct, is just possibly slightly off-center from being correct.  One must be willing to see that there *are* other ways to look at things and that our way is not the only way.

      I liken being a forum moderator to being a manager over staff that are from different cultural, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds.  You want them to work for you right?  If your goal is to have them work *with* you and not *against* you, then you can't take the approach you're taking in these forums right now.  In real life, you would have a full mutiny on your hands with the "my way or the highway approach".  It takes patience, sensitivity and a strong sense of fairness.  Believe me, it's not an easy task!  I am speaking from my own personal real life situation here, so I really do know where of I speak.

      Please, take the positive, meant in the best way comments from here and allow yourself to grow.  It shouldn't hurt too much!

      edited for grammar

      12 replies

      Show previous replies
      J
      Jochem van Dieten
      Inspiring
      August 7, 2009

      Kath-H wrote:

      So now we have a pretty bolshy group of people who are sitting about, kicking their heels, hoping against hope that someone will sort out this buggy, defective software. Many have made very detailed, constructive suggestions and requests, others have gone to the trouble of making work-arounds. In the meantime they are chatting amongst themselves, which is normal behaviour for bored people in a waiting room who are still hoping for something to happen.

      Normal or not, there are places where lounging is appropriate, and places where it isn't.

      However, moderating a group such as the one gathered here is not easy. To be successful, it is necessary to show good humour, a sense of humour, a willingness to explain actions, and a degree of courtesy and respect, even to those who are not behaving particularly well at the time.

      But all of that needs to be balanced against the goal of the moderation. It is counterproductive if threads about topic X end up with posts about other topics, only to have those posts edited, and then an explanation of the edit being posted.

      So if you want to know about why moderators make certain decisions, ask away. Just don't do it in the thread were it occured. Nor by private message, but just in a thread like this one. And without the name-calling.

      To suddenly begin mass deletions, without showing any of these qualities, may well be counter-productive.

      It probably is. That is one of the reasons why moderators have so far restrained from purging the archives and are focussing only on new messages.

      Now we need a better balance between discouragement of excessive pointless and snarky posts, information about what progress is being made / might be made / won't be made on forum fixes and improvements, individual help like JC has always provided for people who have weird stuff going on with their account, and a degree of visible humanity - please - to gain the consent of those being moderated.

      Gaining consent is not a purpose of moderation. In some cases it may be a means to an end, an end being for instance a reduction in the number of off-topic messages and thread highjacks.

      Seriously, I don't understand what the big deal is. Let's see what happened in the first 48 hours of me being a moderator:

      1. I moved a thread with explanation to the right forum.

      2. I locked a thread moving off-topic with explanation.

      3. I locked a thread moving off-topic with explanation.

      4. I locked a new off-topic thread with explanation.

      5. I deleted a thread in which the originator of thread 4 started name-calling.

      Everything after that is people swooping in, calling me heavy handed, hijacking threads about other topics etc. I fail to see why this chain of events would surprise anybody. And while I am willing to entertain it, I even fail to see why this chain of events would be reason to start a thread about moderation

        A
        Anonymous
        August 7, 2009

        What I believe to be legitimate reasons for deleting posts or locking threads are Spam & Profanity.  Name calling is not really reason to lock a thread.  I've been called Q-Ball, Q-Tip and I've had my intelligence questioned a number of times, by a couple of people.  I wasn't pleased by that but I don't see any reason to remove, or lock, a thread over it.  That's just silly.  Being a good moderator is commendable, but we don't need our mommies to do that.

        I have been asking for people to use reasonably good manners here for a long time.  I wish we would respect each other.  Most of us do so, even if we disagree.  But when people are less than polite, censorship is not the answer.  Threads disappear for the most trivial reasons.

        And yes, I agree we need to be less "snarky".  We also need a forum that isn't plagued with so many problems.  It's a two way street.

        Kath-H
        Kath-HAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 8, 2009

        John Joslin wrote:

        The situation certainly needed bringing under control, but the reason this forum became a secondary lounge was because there was almost no feedback from Admin.

        I can't speak on behalf of Adobe Admin, but try to put yourself in their position for a moment. This is a massive operation with hundreds of forums. Setting up and administering something of this scale would take a huge amount of effort, even if everything went smoothly, and everyone was delighted with the new setup. There are bugs, the system is slower than it should be, and there's a daily torrent of spam. On top of that, Adobe is a huge organization; and huge organizations are slow, bureaucratic creatures.

        It's perfectly clear that a lot of people don't like the new system, and I'll be quite frank: there is a lot not to like. The fact is that this is the system we have got. I have no idea whether there's any chance of going back to the previous separate Macromedia and Adobe forums, but I doubt it very much. A project of this size will have cost a large stash of cash; and there will be contractual obligations that make a retreat difficult. Adobe's a big customer for Jive, so it should have some leverage to get things improved; but things like that take time and negotiation.

        So, faced with all of these problems, where would you put your priority: drop everything to deal with a forum that you admit needed bringing under control, or get on with the job of trying to get the whole system running in a satisfactory manner?

        The problem is this forum has degenerated into a cacophony, where sensible suggestions get drowned out in a mass of off-topic chatter.

        In spite of the problems with the forum software, many product forums are vibrant. We've lost a lot of good friends and helpful people in the Dreamweaver forums, but the volume of posting hasn't diminished; and new people have emerged as useful contributors. Other people are making the best of an imperfect situation; and those who don't like it have left for other forums. So, what I suspect has happened here is that Adobe has just left you talking among yourselves. That's a pity, because good feedback could help improve the system down the line, even if not immediately.

        Moderation needs to be by people who earn respect. And it needs to be moderate.

        Agreed. There should rarely, if ever, be the need to edit or remove other people's posts. The Macromedia forums were not moderated. Disputes occasionally broke out, but were usually quickly settled through peer pressure. Even now, abuse reports on the former Macromedia side are rare. Unfortunately, this forum and the lounges have earned a reputation as bad neighbourhoods. Perhaps the residents should do something about restoring their reputation.


        You make a lot of sense, David.


        However, if quite a lot of people are unhappy with the new forums, it stands to reason they are likely to come here with their protests - and their good, constructive suggestions, and their carefully written work-arounds.


        Leaving people to grumble amongst themselves is a recipe for disorder - ever seen a classroom where the teacher absents him/herself for whatever reason?


        Adults behave that way too sometimes


        What is needed - and has been asked for, over and over again, is a regular progress report on fixing needed, or even wished-for improvements.


        The other necessity is a regular host. As I indicated at the beginning, it's not an easy task, especially when things have begun to drift quite badly. If Oz can't be tempted back, and JC really doesn't have time, another host with the qualities that have already been described is necessary.


        Jochem's attitude is just plain wrong and  will make things worse. It's a generally recognised fact that those with authority often need to demonstrate the courtesy and respect they want to encourage. This arrogant, adversarial wielding of the whip is causing resentment and will cause more - it will not help.


        The regulars here are not bad people, and have tried very hard to help. Treating them/us with such arrogant disdain can only lead to trouble - or possibly a general emptying out. That might seem all very nice and peaceful, but amongst the chatter are a lot of very sensible suggestions and requests which it would be foolish to ignore. Also people flag up recently noticed bugs and make valid suggestions.


        How hard can it possibly be to indicate that specific issues are known, have been recognised and can/can't or will/won't be fixed within a certain timescale? And is really that hard to identify a host with a bit of humour, courtesy and common sense?


        (Oh, and the lounge was fine with Oz in charge!)

        Kath-H
        Kath-HAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 7, 2009

        But Dave knows it doesn't work that way anymore. So I am concluding he

        is knowingly sending someone the wrong way and being very vocal about

        how 'helpful' he is, and would like to know why.

        See, comments like that (from Jochem) send off all kinds of fireworks - dave's been around the forums since Adam was a lad and the notion that he would behave that way is quite breathtakingly insulting to one of the most helpful and good-hearted people around here.


        Policing/moderating by consent is the only way that works Jochem - please try harder. An apology for the above would be a good start.

        Kath-H
        Kath-HAuthor
        Inspiring
        August 7, 2009

        [Edit: Do as you would be done by, Jochem.]

        A
        Anonymous
        August 7, 2009

        Do as you would be done by.

        The Ethic of Reciprocity

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