My thoughts on future automated user moderation page 4 (locked)

I agree with that, mils. But the thing is that 20 mods would be adequate, if another of Bruce’s suggestions was put to life, namely the fewer, more general chatrooms.

I’m not going to lie and say I’ve read it all, but the word “bias” doesn’t appear even a single time here.

Sorry to interrupt :P

OK well greg you must of put hough t into this and it truely seems like a great idea.I just think that the way you have it set up in this plan seems like a slightly flawed plan. Well im not sure how long my post will be but it will tackle the key points im trying to get at here.First off if this plan was implemented would all us “normal users” be set back to the status of “new user?” And like AntB and Allison pointed out ,some users don’t come here just to be competitive just for badges and cards.Some come because it is a friendly atmosphere where they can play games.Some people are naturally talented at games while others may not be so good at them. This would make t difficult for “new users” to become a " regular user." Thirdly the just press a button and hope you become mod seems like a bad idea on your part.From what i have heard in chat and in the community in general you basically review the recommendations for one to become a mod.Think of the hundreds of users that would click that button. In chat you could ask who wants to be a mod and at least half the chat would want to.So there would be so many unqualified users just clicking that button,also many over qualified users not clicking. Also the vote idea seems , well a bit iffy. There are those users who should be mods by all means, but have a few enemies in the room.The little vote pops up and theses enemies see it as payback and get there freinds to vote no or yes if they are being silenced.Then becoming a mod. If it where a vote ,it would be a popularity contest. Those users who may deserve to be a mod and apply but maybe arn’t o popular in the community don’t get moded because of that.while the users with hundreds of friends are mods only because they have friends.On the good side the room owners nominating mods seems like a great idea.that way if each room has a mod who is commonly on there will be a better chance that those people have a small chance of getting to be a mod.Other than those few flaws it seems like a great plan.So i don’t actually have any ideas on hand right now to aid int this process but some of the others users ideas are great.And again great job on this.Sorry if i covered something already posted , i accidentally didn’t read a page.So please don’t yell at me for it.And once again great job Greg and other users on these great ideas.I think they could really benefit to Kong.

good idear

Remember, greg will still have ‘Ultimate’ Power over the situation, becoming a user mod would be a Step to a mod, but it takes a lot to become an actual moderator.

Theres “GREG Camp” Where they learn to be like the “Almighty Greg”

Don’t forget Mod Camp where they undergo rigorous lie detecting, to make sure its not Nath or a ___chan member.

And never forget Banning School, where they pick out, and learn to wield they selective Ban Weapon.

And yes, I did make all that up.

Brucecorp, there’s a problem with unifying chat too much: if you have too many people all trying to talk in the same room, it becomes a big scroll that nobody can really follow. and if you’re part of one of those conversations, you wind up ignoring everything else just so you can keep up with your own. end result becomes frustrating for those chatting, and daunting for those interested in chatting but not currently involved. i can see it being valuable on those occasions when the number of active chatters subsides. but under the current system, if someone really wants to chat, and there’s nobody chatting, they can find a different room.

and yes, modding chat is quite different from modding a forum.

striking against a ‘referee’ or a mod is a reasonable check system, but what concerns me the most about it is the automation. we presume we’ll have troubles with troll gangs. most of these effects will be temporary, but if someone is trying to mod in a room that has a persistent gang, then they’ll receive a statistically significant number of strikes even for trying to do their job properly. there would need to be some way to overturn the effects of the strikes, or preferably, to be able to nix the strikes entirely… but that in and of itself requires more manual administration, which is precisely what we’re trying to shift away from…

.. i do apologize if i’m lousy at coming up with solutions. it’s simply not my forté. i’m a lot better at seeing potential problems.

This idea is very good. I like many aspects of it. Possibly combine for a joint proposal to Kongregate.
Please see my idea: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1/topics/5284?page=1#posts-90034

I’ve actually updated this idea a bit, seen here: http://www.geocities.com/gregloire/FutureUserModeration.doc

Wouldn’t be easier if each room have a diferent owner? They could control the room and have more power than a moderator but only on his respective room ^^

Wow, old thread. Missed this the first time around.

You’re obviously all hooked on the idea of ranks and points and the like, so I expect this to be handwaved away and then ignored, but I might as well try anyway:

This is a bad idea, based on a flawed, unstated premise.

The unstated premise behind this idea is that there exist three discrete, global sets of users: let’s call them “unwanted”, “wanted”, and “trustworthy”. The system is designed to use the stated opinions of all the users to sort some of them into the “trustworthy” set, and then let that set sort the rest of the users, so that those in the “unwanted” set can be blocked from communicating with any other users. The mechanism by which it does this is not important.

It won’t work because there is nothing to stop the people in the “unwanted” set from manipulating the system so that they are mislabelled as “trustworthy”. Slashdot proved that karma whoring works; you can, with minimal effort, convince large numbers of people to rate you highly and then abuse the power they have given you. Ultimately, any system based on playing a numbers game is always going to fail, because the only people who play the game to win are those who fall under “unwanted” – the rest of the people don’t really play the game with an intent to win it, so they won’t. (Offhand, I see about half a dozen obvious attacks on this system that would allow any single or small group of attackers to control it)

The premise above is flawed because there isn’t a global assignment of users into sets. Different people have different opinions about what kind of communication is and is not wanted. Any system which tries to find a global solution will fail, because there isn’t one; it will become hopelessly confused by the differing opinions, and break down (usually by excluding everybody but the largest majority group, which will get you a solution that conforms to the desires of white Christian male 14-year-olds, and everybody else goes away). For any such system to really work, it must accomodate the existence of genuinely differing points of view, and present them all with a solution that they find acceptable. This implies that it must be capable of showing different views to different users.

Always remember the golden rule: ELECTION SYSTEMS DO NOT WORK ON THE INTERNET

I have no real opinion about what you just said other then the white Christian male 14-year-old thing. I like to think we Kongregators are not discriminatory, and also, we aren’t in real life here. If the person is likable, responsible and mature, then they would probably become a User Moderator.

No one really cares all that much about their race, age and religion on the internet. I think you’re trying to compare this to real elections which simply doesn’t work due to the lack of knowledge we have about each other.

The truth is, there is only one single point of view. We want people who can handle the job to have the job. We aren’t concerned with anything else here.

While the vote is being partaken perhaps have the person being voted for, or against, silenced?

also how will you prevent this situation:

One day dave507 decides he hats joe100.

dave507 form a group of 10 people who also hate joe100.

dave507’s group, continuosly follow joe100, when he’s online, and silence him.

When he returns they continue to silence him.

how about to stop chat gangs purpousely giving mods strikes is to maybe have something where as if they’re friends with the person who started the silencing u can’t join in the voting for your friend this would only happen however if the friend thing is two ways so your a friend with him/her and he’s a friend with u. I know there’s many ways around this but i was thinking that as u said a silence normally takes 30 seconds then it would be hard for members of the ‘chat gang’ to go on there profile,click on friends, click on remove friend, wait for this to happen, go on games, select a game and then vote no, also i was thinking that u can’t vote on a silence unless u were in the room 10 seconds before the silence ban began.

And if your getting voted to be silenced u can’t leave the room and can’t talk and maybe that all the members can’t talk until they have placed a vote for this reason i was thinking of maybe a no vote option?

@ Billy: I don’t really think that, unless you were a popular person, you would have a legion of stalkers waiting to silence you at every moment, but that’s just me. It could still very well happen.

About apointing new regular mods. Maybe there could be almost like a monthly evaluation of all current mods and staff. Each could nominate 1, and only one, person to become a full-flegged moderator. Each would be put into a poll and then they would vote on the person they thought was moderator material. And there could always be the option of not voting or nominating so it wouldn’t have to be EVERY month, but just on occasion.

i really like scapegoats idea the best, keep the mods…moddy? and let them nominate others, but only nominate like 2-4 mods a month, more if kong starts to grow faster

Yea, a revised version would be to switch off or appoint active mods to nominate people, like arcaneCoder or any of the other ones. That way, only a few people would be nominated and there wouldn’t be a tidal wave of new mods.

Hey! Isn’t this why we have mute buttons?!? I like the system now, and I especially don’t like the idea of a fixed number of moderators, that would make a lot of people (including me) feel like crud. It would mean that I would never have a chance to become a mod, and I think that with our current system, trolls aren’t a problem for me.
I have trolldar. I can tell whether to mute someone or not by the first sentence they speak.

About apointing new regular mods. Maybe there could be almost like a monthly evaluation of all current mods and staff. Each could nominate 1, and only one, person to become a full-flegged moderator. Each would be put into a poll and then they would vote on the person they thought was moderator material. And there could always be the option of not voting or nominating so it wouldn’t have to be EVERY month, but just on occasion.

One of the reasons that a system like this is less feasible is because the growth of the site gives us less and less time to actively participate in moderator selection and training. We do not want to appoint mods who will abuse their power and only end up causing more work for us than having no moderator at all. Because of how careful we have to be, there has to be systems in place outside of just appointed mods, however the depth of that system is still up for some debate.

I do see your point Damijin, as I remember a discussion in chat or somewhere about “Quantity vs. Quality” for mods, and that there has to be a good balance between the two. And, just a question, how long does it take to train a mod? (The reason I ask is because, well, quite frankly, I didn’t even know mods were trained!)

i dont think that your level should have anything to do with you being a moderater i think that when you apply the current mods should take a vote of whether you are qualified

I will not offer my main arguments yet, I want to ensure they are properly thought out and nor redundant of others.

I will however offer respect to bringing this to everyone first. Letting the people who are affected by this be involved in it’s shaping and pointing out good points and flaws. I have been involved in too many sites that make a decision which completely alienate it’s regular users because of it.

I would like to point out:
1)

So there would be so many unqualified users just clicking that button,also many over qualified users not clicking. Also the vote idea seems , well a bit iffy. There are those users who should be mods by all means, but have a few enemies in the room.The little vote pops up and theses enemies see it as payback and get there freinds to vote no or yes if they are being silenced.Then becoming a mod. If it where a vote ,it would be a popularity contest. Those users who may deserve to be a mod and apply but maybe arn’t o popular in the community don’t get moded because of that.while the users with hundreds of friends are mods only because they have friends.

I agree somewhat here, the voting could turn into a popularity contest



2) renny brought up a good point, which I do not think was properly addressed, and that is where current moderators/room owners fit into the rating system and the possibility of losing “powers”.



Overall I think this has been given a good amount of thought, and is being handled well, but implementation is a far bit harder than design.

Regular user suggestion and mod stuff is just great because i see many 1-5lvl n00bies who just spams, say trash and other nonsense.

I see a small problem from what I’ve read so far, about the user moderator part. If the silence gets overturned, the person about to be silenced will get really mad at the person trying to silence them and have a big fit about it. More to be added by edit when I read on through the article.

EDIT: Any givven person can OBVIOUSLY tell lots of thought has gone through this. This is an EXTREMELY improved version of what we have now. I would like to see this being applied as soon as anyone has the time to do this. One thing though, it would be nice if people of greater power (ie Regular Moderators, Kong Staff, Room Owners) could actually edit the exact ammount of time silenced/banned. Like instead of going for a set 30 or 60 minutes, you could actually edit it. Like I mean, there could be someone who was doing something bad, but obviously NOT so severe that they needed to be banned/silenced (probably silenced for this case) for 60 minutes, but 30 minutes would be too good for them. Maybe an option to edit the duration by intervals of 5 minutes. But thats just an opinion. Oh, and User Moderators. I found that it was a really great thought putting the “strike” system in, because otherwise this could be easily abused. 30% seemed a little too harsh. 40 or 45% maybe? One final thing I’d like to adress is the thing about regular users. Level 10 seemed to be FAR too tough. Like I mean, there are lots of moderators at this moment, and I know this, that would pay lots more attention to chat than they would rate games, earn badges, and refer people, therefore reducing their chance to earn points. This absolutely doesn’t mean, however, that they are not good people, and they are definitely worthy of a higher rank/tier/whatever. Overall, great system I would like to see implemented. Again, these are all entirely MY thoughts. 5/5!

Edit 2: I’d have to agree with William_Wilson, the moderators will have a few enemies here and there because they got mad because they got banned/silenced by s/he, and would like payback. They then preceed to tell all their mod-hating friends to vote no if their trying to silence/ban someone, and earn the mod a free strike, no matter how obviously badly the person (about) to be sentenced is breaking the rules. I can see that happening. Oh, by the way, how do you quote things?

Kongregate doesn’t need to assign real people as moderators they can use those virtual simulators that some sites have. Some sites have virtual clients…

All these ideas are good, and I don’t have really anything to add, all the little holes are being patched by others.