As a matter of policy, IMHO members should not be issuing orders, but advice is ok. Again IMHO.
So, “I am not a moderator, but such silly posts tend to earn warnings and eventual bannings if they persist,” should be acceptable. A certain amount of intra-member policing is a good thing, though I concede there are disadvantages as well. For example, posting silly things isn’t actually a warnable offense per se: the hypothetical advice given in this paragraph is bad.
In terms of the functioning of this board, I only see a problem with junior moderating to the extent that it involves an excessive number of cooks or it adds unacceptable levels of confusion. And of course asking for clarification of the OP should be encouraged to the extent that it fights ignorance. That’s what we’re here for.
It was actually 6:30, I’m in eastern time zone because we’re travelling to visit newborn granddaughter, and I’m normally up by then anyhow.
Others: Some useful thoughts, thanks. I accept Cicero’s amended wording; I used “dictating” because it was in the prior.
I agree. But it’s rarely so clear. The more usual situation is someone saying “That’s a personal insult” or “That’s threadshitting.” Those are “technical” terms (i.e., against the rules), and my point is that should be up to a moderator to decide whether something is an insult (vs merely snarky) or threadshitting (vs a brief tangent.)
I think an issue here is that some of us (and I include myself) would rather address a minor problem ourselves rather than call in a moderator to deal with trivia.
The problem I have is that I’ve seen people say someone is threadshitting quite often, and seen mods go ahead and respond in such threads without any indication that the claim should not have been made.
Heck, I will do it, since the rule appears to say that not all threadshitting is moderatable. And this rule seems to even say that not all junior modding is moderateable, as sometimes it just comes across as rude.
These two overlapping fuzzy lines are why I think handing out Warnings for claims of threadshitting is a bad idea. If the person is insulting in their claim, moderate the insult. If it’s causing a hijack or otherwise harming the thread, Mod Note for that to get it back on track. (And if people don’t comply, Warn for not following mod instructions.)
Honestly, I thought that was pretty much how it was done, up until recently.
And to some extent, that’s fine. But on tother hand, that’s the whole prob with “junior modding.” Poster b thinks that Poster A has insulted them. Rather than call in a Moderator, Poster B tells Poster A that they’ve broken the rules and been rude. Then Poster A replies even harsher, the original wasn’t an insult, so stuff it. Then Poster B says “Was too” and accuses Poster A of being a jackass. Then Poster A responds in kind. The escalation means that, by the time the moderator does get involved, BOTH A and B have crossed the line, and both get reprimanded. Much, much better to call in the moderator for something trivial, than to wait until it becomes a big mess. We don’t mind dealing with the trivial; we prefer it, to trying to sort of a massive tangled web.
And I think it still is done that way, mostly, but there are exceptions. Some tangents or aside aren’t “threadshitting”, and no big deal. Some “junior modding” is absolutely acceptable – e.g., we want people to report Spam, and to note that they have done so (so we don’t sixteen reports of the same spam.) Or suggesting to a newbie that a better forum would be… Etc. Everything is situational, and there are very few absolutes.
Frankly sometimes I’m surprised you don’t throw up your hands and say “screw it, you knuckleheads are on your own” and let the board completely melt down.
“When someone who is not a moderator asserts that something is a violation of SDMB rules.” This constitutes a shift in policy in my view.
Zoinks, that is a problem. I’d prefer not to deal with the tightening of the policy, but I can certainly live with it. I like this construction: “When someone who is not a moderator tries to dictate how another poster should act.” YMMV, and this is the mod’s business anyway.
Is there any way of distinguishing between friendly and unfriendly assertions?
The next time we have a no-rules weekend in the Pit, I’m opening up a Junior Moderator thread. (“Cease this activity at once. Your posting privileges are being discussed by the Junior Moderators”.)
ETA: Ah. I suppose you can state the rules without claiming that somebody is actually breaking the rules. You can even do that politely, though that may be too much to ask at times.
I think it’s just a more concise expression of the policy, and perhaps a narrowing. The prior “dictate how another poster should act” was being read to includes things like, “You really should vote for …” and “If you don’t like that actor, you shouldn’t go to this movie.”
Not infallibly, but often. “You’re new here, but you might want to use spoiler tags for that so as not to spoil…” (friendly) vs “Dammit, why the fuck didn’t you use spoiler tags?” (unfriendly.) But obviously, not always.
Yes, absolutely. We rely, to a large extent, on people giving friendly advice (espesh to newbies.) The process of REPORT/wait for mod decision can take a while, no question.
Again, this is just clarification because we’ve had several REPORTS in the last few weeks accusing folks of Junior Modding, that seem to have misunderstood entirely what Jr Modding is. We’re not trying to enforce the rules any stricter, we’re trying to cut down on people thinking something is a rules violation (and getting worked up about it) when it ain’t even close.
On a few occasions I’ve reported someone’s first post here because it contains a link to another site, and noted it as “reported”. It’s not always clear that the person is a spammer or that the link is spam; today’s reporting by me of same is a clear example, and it turns out that it was harmless. I always feel like I’m playing hall monitor when I do this, and want to make sure I’m not overstepping, if it’s not clearly spam.
I agree that it would melt down. Usenet shows what happens to discussion groups without moderation. Anybody familiar with blogging knows that moderating comments is an active issue. (Disemvoweling is one way of managing problem commentors.) When John Oliver joked about internet commentators, most knew exactly what he was talking about. So maybe this post was unnecessary: you probably knew all this.
To reiterate and back up Sam: you canNOT go wrong reporting a post you find questionable. Don’t worry that you’re reporting too many. If that happens we’ll alert you. There are posters in Great Debates who report several per day and, even if Tom and I don’t act on all of them, there’s no resentment. It’s the best way for us to know when a thread is boiling over and one of us needs to hit them with the hose.
I got an email just the other day telling me I was reporting too many posts.
Back to Jr Modding- In the CS “Peacekeeping” sticky it is noted: Q: What should I do if I discover inappropriate posts?
A: Do not Junior Mod. If someone posts inappropriately, report the post and walk away. Do not start fights. If one starts anyway, do not participate.
I note a lot of pile ons and Jr Modding in those threads.
