Why should users Self-Moderate?
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Why should users Self-Moderate?
Why shoulders expect to be allowed Self-moderate?
What is self moderation?
How does it work or what is you definition?
Does it need to be supported by a platform? -
FWIW Stack Overflow has been pretty user hostile for a long while now.
I don't think anybody thought that empowering users to moderate each other would backfire in such a way. SO really was the first in instituting trust levels (with increasing access to moderation-style actions) at such a large scale.
Even Google doesn't trust their local guides to make changes to Maps' content without third-party verification from other users.
Depending on how you look at it, SO is either a case-study in successful implementation of user-to-user moderation, or a failure. It really depends on what indicators you look at.
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@julian Great point - you're right. Self-Moderation never works, and I can certainly attest to that owing to a similar situation evolving in a security community I used to be a member of, which was peerlyst.com. It's now defunct, but they allowed two users to effectively lock horns with worsening remarks and statements on each post, and simply stood back and let it happen, which is totally unacceptable. It was only when another user pointed out that all of this was being crawled by Google and would have had a severe impact on their bottom line as well as SEO, they removed it.
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I was so disgusted, I left that community and deleted my own account.
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@phenomlab My experience defines self-moderation as requesting, expecting and encouraging users to self-moderate when posting and engaging, so on the fly.
I never imagined ever giving user moderation control of any sort and they were never available on the platforms I had access too.
I see self-moderation now means in some ways the opposite, instead of implying the user being responsible to conduct their own behaviour with civility and respect etc., as is the case in the real world in social societies, the idea is now to give them tasers and then what, last man posting?
@julian I am not familiar at all with the stack overflow setup, but surely common sense dictates allow users access to the Sheriff's gun cabinet would end badly - how exactly did it work?
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@omega said in Why should users Self-Moderate?:
I see self-moderation now means in some ways the opposite, instead of implying the user being responsible to conduct their own behaviour with civility and respect etc., as is the case in the real world in social societies, the idea is now to give them tasers and then what, last man posting?
For me, self-moderation means you should use the same common courtesy, manners, and respect you'd (ideally) use in person or face-to-face. However, you cannot trust everyone to enforce their own standards at all times, and conversations often get heated (to put in mildly). This is why you can never assume that self-moderation is a good idea because without someone else monitoring content, it will easily get out of control.
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@phenomlab Yes we are in general agreement here on the definition, but what I forgot to add was self-moderation was encouraged and expected as rules of engagement with the caveat that it mad moderation, the thankless job of moderators easier, you know wont' somebody think of the poor mods, but of course if users failed in the heat of the moment, of course typical forum moderation was on standby by with phases set to stun, with teh odd outing of ban hammer, for some shock and awe (but rare) you'd be double nuts to imagine imagine zero-oversight and ability to control users and content flow on a forum would work out just fine!
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@omega ironically, this is exactly what peerlyst.com did. It actually signaled the end for them.
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@omega they had them, yes, but they decided to a stand back and watch with popcorn whilst the two affected users tore lumps out of each other. And when they did finally "intervene", it was too late.
Their ignorance in my view cost them their standing as a platform.
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@phenomlab How can two users have a go at each other bring down a site? Really?
That would be an interesting thread to read over.
If they let them personally attack each other, then that was a bad move, cybernetic personal attacks, even if anons are never a good look, but if it was a robust debate, you have to let expression reign and that include intelligent or clever humour ribbing (which helps to take some of the heat out), but personal attacks designed to destroy. Hmmm....
However, it took only two users take down a forum or site?
You need to wonder, and this is speculation, could it have been done intentionally to damage the site. I know nothing of the context or competitors who might like to see that site damaged or gone, but you never know, stranger things have happened. I find it weird one exchange could destroy a site, but again I don't know the site, context, and general profile, but as an abstract, if such things occurs it indicates their would other problems at play not immediately obvious.
You do sometimes lose people over moderation decision or lack of action in the eye of others, you can't please all the people all of the time.
Having written all that, it does happen sometimes with social establishments, a regular gets treated badly or something happens, and the entire entourage find a new watering hole and the previous one looses all the former appeal and customers, might even close them down, so it's not unknown either in the real world, there is precedent. Maybe I've answered my own bemusement.
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@omega said in Why should users Self-Moderate?:
Maybe I've answered my own bemusement.
Exactly that.
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@omega said in Why should users Self-Moderate?:
@julian I am not familiar at all with the stack overflow setup, but surely common sense dictates allow users access to the Sheriff's gun cabinet would end badly - how exactly did it work?
The idea behind it is that as you contribute content to the site, you are continually proving yourself to be a good actor. This plus the sunk cost of your time-on-site would mean you would want to better the site as opposed to tearing it down.
That basic assumption is correct. So the more rep you earn via upvotes, answers, etc. β the more access you get. You get to edit other peoples' answers, later on you get to moderate automatically flagged posts/edits... the higher levels let you moderate users I'm sure.
What SO did not account for was that fully enabling users had allowed them to go to the logical extreme of that behaviour. Now, you have a perverse incentive to moderate for the sake of moderation, as opposed to for the betterment of the site. Combined with how there are many many users with those privileges, you now also want to do it very very fast. Perfect storm for bad decision making.
The easiest example I can think of is that if you ask a question on SO, it will be closed almost immediately as having been asked before. There would be a link to the supposed "prior" question, but more often than not it is not the same question.
Human behaviour at work: it is far simpler for one to close a question as "having been seen before", earn some points, and slap a link to a vaguely related question... than it is to actually write out an answer!!
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@julian Thanks for that. Sounds like they ran the stanford experiment either ignorantly or intentionally using rewards (omg), and you could also be describing the moderation culture over at meta.discourse, but I'm sure you are not in the slightest.
I suppose cultural aphorisms such as absolute power corrupts, absolutely. have not passed enough eyes or ears of, and you'd think what with the internet n'stuff we all have the chance to better ourselves first, perhaps that's the key point, know they self > first, before you start trying to improve others, guess that puts me out of a job so!
Bottom line, there appears to be a set of personality types (for lack of a better phrase ot hand right now) or group dynamics etc. who easily mistake or get caught up in the idea of ideological based treatise, statements or assumptions to be some kind of infallible absolute truth and blindly try to apply this ideologically derived Truth to reality, like projects or whole societies, that when it goes demonstrably and cataclysmically wrong, there is zero ability to man up and learn from the mistake and the great double down begins, because the mistake requires dismantling a world view in many cases (introspection, can a mob do introspections?), it's reminiscent of totalitarian or communist regimes as they falter, it's a dozy, but hey, maybe that's just my opinion, but a culture that understands and a respects ownership tends to not produce these outcomes in such orders of deadly virtual or real magnitude.
People have produced free content, systems etc. and did not need these rewards in the past. They appeared to have an inner drive and did not need treats along the way to do good things. Is it pampering? Is it a poor facsimile or assessment of "reputation" earned is good, because bad reputation can take you as far as a good reputation. No guarantee either outcome ends well.
There is a lot of pavlovian thinking applied to the net, in spades, but we are not dogs, or as they say - pay peanuts, get monkeys?
Second bottom line or conclusion, the answer we are probably looking for here is, Trust.
The whole of society is built on Trust.
When it's implied and it's automatic a high and higher trust society forms and does very well. Very very well indeed.
They are nice places to live and the produce great works and better outcomes in aggregate. They provide reliability against the cold face of natures hard lessons.
It's not perfect, but so far it appears to allow the best outcomes and allow for the expression of good maximum potential, achieving a balanced ratio of stability and risk [Too much risk, chaos (death), too much stability stagnation (death)]
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@omega said in Why should users Self-Moderate?:
and you could also be describing the moderation culture over at meta.discourse, but I'm sure you are not in the slightest.
I waive all responsibility for what is read in between my lines.
Thanks for that. Sounds like they ran the stanford experiment either ignorantly or intentionally using rewards
It occurs to me that Stack Overflow may not have been the first. Wikipedia itself has a similar usage of trust levels, with increasing access to mod tools as you contribute more.
That said, I have my own reservations about Wikipedia