Modding for content

Yeah, but it is.

Looks more like FeS2 to me.

Nu-uh.

Add me to the “the decision to kill the thread was, itself, too stupid to live.”

Then tell us, oh great predictor of thread substance, how much substance was in the 51-option thread that you decided to leave open?

It died after 44 posts, and I don’t think much of substance was said, and the discussion was rater scattered and unfocused.

How much better is the above result compared to what would have happened to the 75-option thread you decided to close?

I don’t think it’s fair to Czarcasm to second-guess his decisions like that. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. The line is going to be somewhat subjective, and it is not always going to be perfectly enforced. Both the 75-option and the 51-option polls seem near that line to me.

Why does there “need” to be a line? Let the board decide what lives and dies: if people find it of interest, it’ll thrive, if they don’t, it’ll vanish.

Simple as that, with no bullshit subjectivity needed.

Do you not, for example, see the benefit of removing spam threads? Do you not see how they could prove a distraction and a waste of time?

This discussion isn’t about spam–it’s about threads posted in earnest.

You said:

“Why does there “need” to be a line?”

So I gave an example of why there does “need” to be a line. I’m not sure how you think the differentiation between spam (or trolls, or whatever) and threads posted in earnest is always objective. There is always a line, and always some subjective judgement isinvolved.

I would refer you to the great Kyril Bonfiglioli quote I’ve referenced before:
“Her heart,” I said bitterly, “is like spittle on the palm that the Tartar slaps – no telling which way it will pitch.” …
It applies to moderation. And rightly so since as I also often point out ‘Modding is an Art, not a Science’.

Of course not; I was obviously referring to the earnest suggesting earlier in the thread that a moderator should discuss wth the poster his style and choices rather than simply closing a thread down. Quality control means that threads are closed or removed if a moderator thinks it lowers not only discourse, but the appearance of a board. Just as one may correct egregious spelling mistakes in titles — to avoid the youtube experience.
I am not a fan of censorship for anything, no matter how ‘hateful’ or offensive; and I prefer useless / annoying threads to be dropped into a sub-forum dedicated to worthless threads: but every board has it’s own style. And in each board quarrelling with moderator decisions is one of the most futile of human pastimes.

While decisions of this nature are subjective that doesn’t mean they are capricious. There should exist some guiding principals that underlie that judgment. I think most people agree that closing of spam and excessively inane threads is fine. The question most of us are pursuing is at what point are we being overly protected from the risk of inanity, when there seems to be little risk and some possibility of reward.

Inanity is subjective. Decisions of this nature may appear capricious, but only because your subjective assessment has a capricious relationship to someone else’s, which is normal. This is especially true when you are making comparisons and second-guesses regarding threads that also straddle the line. As I said in the post that started this particular sub-discussion that you just jumped into:

I don’t have any problem with you arguing that this particular thread was not inane and shouldn’t have been closed (though I disagree). But I don’t think it is fair to bug Czarcasm about this other 51-option poll that wasn’t closed.

Some people don’t hold their own opinions in such hgh esteem as you apparently do. We recognize that others can disagree with us, and that’s OK.

Your atitude is basically the same as many people’s approach to gay marriage: “WTF? I don’t see the value in two dudes marrying each other, so I don’t think they shouild be allowed to do it! WTF?!”

I’m not sure where I stand on this example, but I certainly see Czarcasm’s point. I wrote a post yesterday in defense of the action, then deleted it without posting because I argued with myself.

I could certainly see that poll spawning dozens of threads to debate the specifics of various comparisons - say, why Al Gore winning the 2000 election would have been more important than the Chinese discovering America first. :wink: I would think trying to have all of those conversations in one thread would be the equivalent of, say, lumping all the threads in Cafe Society into one thread and trying to have those conversations simultaneously, intertwined.

One of the jobs of moderators is to keep post content in the proper forum, and to keep threads from being hijacked/derailed. Many of the actions of moderators is to direct posters to take aspects of a conversation to a new thread in order to keep from derailing the current thread with that side topic. That function is performed to make discussions easier to follow. Post a link to link the topic, then carry out the new conversation in the new thread so as not to overrun the current thread. I think this action is along the same lines. Too many topics piled in one thread would either make the thread too long and complicated to follow a single line of thought, or else would die from being choked out.

One of the jobs of the moderators here is to help keep conversations flowing, not jumbled up in a mess. I think Czarcasm sees this as another example of doing that same thing.

I realize some people would prefer the board to have less moderation, but I like it the way it is. This one falls into a subjective category of whether it could be a meaningful topic or just a big mess.

Because that was a test poll in ATMB for the purposes of practicing how to make polls.

Someone else said why not let it run for a page and see if it became a complicated mess, then close it if it did. Well, I don’t think that would go any better, because inevitably someone would complain that they were having a meaningful discussion comparing China discovering America vs Columbus not discovering America, so why did their conversation have to be prematurely ended? Stop it before the conversations get started and start new threads to frame smaller chunks, limit the scope of individual topics.

The counter argument is that now many of those conversations may not even start because they aren’t framed to inspire the thought. We have some lengthy threads in GD and the Game Room, so there’s no real issue with threads running long (other than the “scare off” factor that provides - I know when I see a thread running for 8 or 10 pages, I have to wonder if it’s worth my time to even start reading it).

I don’t know how to create a workable compromise. Reopen the poll with a note that if detailed comparisons start to break out, the posters should consider starting a new thread for those specific conversations? Then you have moderators making even more subjective evaluations of when the topics became significant enough to merit a new thread vs being short enough to remain in the main one. :dubious: Suggesting it but not enforcing it?

A few comments:

  1. How is that unworkable?
  2. Why should there be a need to take a complicated discussion out of the thread? If the participants want to, great. If not, big deal - it turns into a multipage thread that people have to actually read to follow along. I thought we were the opposite of YouTube comments…
  3. Why should there be a need for a moderator to take a complicated discussion out of the thread? Honestly - why in the world would a mod need to become involved in that?

Irishman - I’m glad you finally won that argument with yourself. :slight_smile:

I understand the issue of 30 discussions happening at once in a single thread. It is an inherent feature of “who’s the best” Cafe Society threads. Sometimes it’s a mess, sometimes not. I would have preferred to have the mess begin to show itself before any modding took place, that’s all.

And I’m still confused about the test nature of Czarcasm’s poll. It was not his first poll, by a long shot. Maybe he was testing his first Boolean poll? I’m probably just missing something. I usually am.

Munch, if the concern is that the conversations would be too varied to be able to coherently follow, then I was looking for a way to solve that problem but still allow the poll to continue. That’s why it’s complex.

The suggestion for taking complicated topics to a new thread is to do precisely what I described, splitting topics to individual threads to hash out the meat without them being a jumbled mess. Allowing posters to contribute to the topic of interest and skip the ones they wish not to read. If you have no desire to read about how Al Gore getting elected would have saved us from 9/11, the housing crunch, and Universal Health Care, then you wouldn’t have to read those posts (or skim them to determine what they were) in order to get to the posts on China discovering America. (Yeah, I keep using the same examples. It’s easier that way.)

The point of putting moderators into it is the function I described previously. If you’re giving an instruction to separate complex discussions, then you’re back to the same thing I described about a regular moderator function to keep threads on track and move hijacks. And like I said, that sounds like asking for more moderator subjective calls about when a topic deserves its own thread. I don’t think the people calling for less moderation want that. YMMV.

So alternately making a suggestion that isn’t enforced, that way people will have a hint but the moderators will let the train wreck occur rather than subjectively intervene? I know some posters would prefer that, but that is not in keeping with the way this board currently works.

Irishman, but it’s just that - a suggestion. One of the great things about this board is that the inhabitants of it are able to function at decent enough level that a suggestion of “I’m reopening this thread - but if side conversations start becoming involved it’d be best if you just started a splinter thread” are actually followed. The mere suggestion would be enough to the point that continual moderation wouldn’t be necessary. The 51 option poll thread is a perfect example - several side conversations, no need for moderation.

Lot of assumptions there. Namely, that a trainwreck would occur. Most people seem to be under the impression that the thread would sink like a stone - that doesn’t lend itself to a trainwreck. Your last sentence doesn’t make any sense. Mods make suggestions all the time without having to back them up with Official Moderation Action when they’re not followed. That’s what makes them suggestions rather than instructions.

Bahhh…

The powers that be close threads that MIGHT possibly become trainwrecks (or might just turn out interesting as hell), yet they won’t do diddly about certain people that have a well established history of actually causing numerous trainwrecks of threads that WERE interesting.