A lot of the threads in GD degenerate into battling calls for cites that look like dueling banjos more than debates. And we’re all familiar with the train wrecks that some threads become when more fanatical posters get involved.
Is it possible with this message board software to have user moderated threads? I mean: a user starts a thread, and all posts to it are passed before a moderator (another user, not a board moderator, I mean), who then judges the post and posts it or edits it as she sees fit.
If that’s possible, it could raise the level of debate on GD quite a lot. It wouldn’t have to be for every thread, but as an option it might make focussed, useful debate happen more often.
People bitch and moan enough about many of the calls made by the “official” mods and admins without creating a “special guest moderator” status which would effectively confer upon the selected members “super-user” status.
Actually, pre-moderation is very close to what I’m asking about.
Think of it this way: Chumpsky and ExTank agree to a discussion about Israel and Palestine, moderated by a neutral third party who calls bullshit on them now and then, refuses to allow the introduction of new points until old points are resolved, and generally keeps the debate moving forward. The ref tracks unanswered charges, calls for cites, etc. Anyone can post, but the user moderator is in charge of keeping things orderly on the level of the debate itself, not just the boundaries of board policy.
If the user moderator is granted the role, it would be on thread-by-thread basis; perhaps the action of starting a thread would allow a user to choose an option to pre-moderate all posts.
It may also lighten the burden on the board moderators, who would have to patrol less for jerkiness.
Nobody would ever think they had been treated fairly by the super-user-moderator of your theory. Especially if that person was chosen for their post by the OP.
I actually think it would increase the headache on the real mods, as they’d have to watch out for super-user-moderator abuse as well as regular poster abuse, which would be impossible given the powers you’re theorizing.
Even if it were possible to set up a single moderated thread (which it isn’t), who would want to participate in it if there is an unmoderated thread sitting right next to it?
But if you want to try the experience, hansel, go right ahead. Ask DavidB, Gaudere and MEBuckner if they mind. If they don’t, start a thread on a subject in GD, and tell people “you cannot post in this thread, all posts must be vetted by me via e-mail and then I will give you the OK / post it for you.”
I could say that I’m starting a moderated thread, and tell people to email me, but frankly, if it wasn’t enforced of the mechanisms of the board, I can’t see it working.
If it’s not possible with the current software, then it’s not possible. But I think it’s worth looking into. Yes, there would be accusations of partiality. But overall, I think that “chaired debates” would become popular, if only for a greater sense of legitimacy in winning them (in some sense).
As for choosing a moderator, I’m reminded of a clause in the contract I signed with the architect who built my house: in the even of dispute, I choose an arbitrator, he chooses an arbitrator, and those two choose a third arbitrator. If the participants of an ideological grudge match have to agree on a moderator beforehand (who then creates the thread and checks to option to pre-moderate all posts), then you have the basis for a civilized debate.
Heck, you could even have make a tournament of it.
As for choosing to post in a moderated or unmoderated thread, I think you’d find that moderated threads would attract a lot of posters frustrated by the train wrecks that some threads become when a particularly zealous proponent of a position blows past requests for cites and damaging counter-arguments.
I don’t think so: a user moderator who does a bad job of it would have an empty thread that would sink out of sight pretty quickly. No board moderator involved. And the board moderators could explicitly say that the user moderator of a particular thread was responsible for enforcing the “don’t be a jerk” rule. Overall, less work for the mods, not more.
It sort of is possible. The simple way to do it would be to create a new forum in which all posts are pre-moderated - so anyone wanting to open a moderated debate would use that forum rather than GD. That forum would still need to have official moderators who vet the queued posts though, and I can’t see the idea flying with either the members or the board administration.
One possible scenario of “bad moderator” would be an empty thread. There are other possibilities, though. Consider an historical example: Galileo was forbidden by the Church to write a book espousing the Copernican model of the solar system, but he was allowed to write a book comparing the Copernican and Ptolomaic models. The book was supposedly structured as a debate, with three participants: One proponent of each model, and a “neutral” arbiter. Thing is, though, Galileo’s “neutral” arbiter agreed with the Copernican fellow on every single point.
Now consider the possibility of a biased arbiter here, which would be almost impossible to avoid. Would such an arbiter really be impartial in judgements of which posts are coherent and in order, and which posts are not? What happens when only the posts approving one particular side get vetted? On the other hand, maybe it is the case that all of the arguments put forth by one side really are incoherent or out of order… How do you silence the cries of moderator bias then?
With a smaller pool of volunteer moderators and five “moderated forums” at the Pizza Parlor we found ourselves with irate posters because there was nobody online with the right to release posts in a given forum for significant lengths of time. Eventually we dropped to two moderated forums, one rarely used, removing the moderator preview from the most-used moderated forum and two of its subforums.
You vote with your mouse and don’t follow the thread, just like some posters ignore other posters because they don’t want to get involved in a thread with them.
I think my idea is being misconstrued here. Granted, it’s all fluff, since the board doesn’t have the mechanisms I’m hoping for, but the idea is this: posters can arrange, amongst themselves, chaired debates (the most accurate description of what I’m proposing), selecting a moderator (alternately, someone can offer to moderate such a thread by creating it). No special privileges on the board would be granted, nor would a second class of moderators be created administratively; anyone could act as moderator for a thread that they started (or some other automated, democratic criteria).
[I’ve written message board software myself; there’s nothing too out there about this idea in a technical sense.]
I think that a Darwinian process would occur, in which the reliable moderators that people tend to trust would get asked to act as moderator, while those who start user-moderated debates just to favor their pet causes wouldn’t be asked, and their threads would disappear (after all, the threads that survive are the ones with a good pissing contest going on). I can see Tomndebb getting asked a lot; I can’t see Chumpsky in the same position. Likewise, those posters with a lot of time to do it would show up again and again as user moderators, while those who couldn’t keep up wouldn’t get asked. Spoofe, for instance, could user-moderate just about anything (as long as Microsoft isn’t involved).
Let me put it another way: who gives a shit? We have the pit for complaining, and if you don’t like one thread’s user moderation, you arrange another moderated thread for the same topic, with a different moderator.
I’m not suggesting the board staff take on additional responsibilites; they’ve got their hands full as is. I was hoping that mechanisms would already exist in the software to make thread-by-thread moderation available to users.
As long as the thread moderator was biased in the right direction (i.e. was unfailingly right, just like me), then there shouldn’t be a problem; the cries of moderator bias would only arise from the people who were wrong and could therefore be comfortably ignored.
