I'm dealing with this on a need-to basis, and the site has become big enough (660 members at the last count) and active enough that we need to talk moderation. I have had a number of offers from people who were mods at DPReview to come and moderate here. There were many really good moderators on DPReview, who did their unpaid job diligently and with sympathy and discretion, and there were a few that seemed to want to play 'bad cop', without the good cop. That's the people, but I always thought that the whole site's attitude to moderation was wrong headed. They started off without very clear rules and principles, and then made it even worse with the infamous 'be nice' policy. One of the tell-tale signs that it wasn't right was that members weren't allowed to discuss moderation - what would you think about a country that didn't allow discussion of its policing?
Anyway, we do need moderation and we do need effective moderation, but we need moderation that is not high handed and oppressive to the membership. So I started this thread mainly for people to tell us about their experience with DPReview, the good and the bad, and maybe at the end we can condense it down and come up with some basic principles that we can operate to.
March 28, 2023
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During my first ten years at dpreview there were no moderators, each forum was tight-knit, and self policing. The internet was new and everyone was nice to each other.
Moderation was introduced in the fall of 2012
Roll on to the present day, and, well… things have changed. Some 30 year old girl flipped me the bird at a set of traffic lights last week. LMAO
oh… it is common for moderator actions and decisions not to be discussed in an open forum, it never ends well.
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I don't think that actions and decisions should be discussed in open forum, that is a violation of members' privacy. I do think members who have a gripe about how they have been treated have a right to discuss it though - that's what happens in open society - you can tell people that the cop beat you up and stole your phone. I witnessed on DPReview moderators who posted on the open forum that they had taken this or that action against a member - that's just plain wrong. And threads discussing broad moderation policy would be pulled - that's also wrong. In a genuine community the members of that community have every right to discuss how they are policed.
As I said, mostly the mods at DPReview were very good - but there were some who weren't. I know of a couple of forums which were really damaged by over zealous mods, and I don't want that to happen here.
Let's make it clear, I am not against moderation at all - we need it, but this is supposed to be a community, and it needs real 'community' moderation. -
Hi,
Moderation can be kept to a minimum if members are clearly told beforehand that bad behaviour/language
will absolutely not be tolerated.
There's enough misery in this world already, so please stay positive and polite.Like I said once on Dpreview, perhaps we should create a separate 'Insults and Abuse' forum where
all the nasty people can go 😉André
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The problem is that people don't know what is the limit of 'bad behaviour/language is'. It varies from person to person, which is why I want some agreed diagnostic rules. Especially on an international forum, there can be misunderstandings about the level of profanity of various terms, and people make mistakes with the best will in the world. I don't think that summary punishment has ever been very effective as a means of controlling things, unless it's summary capital punishment, which obviously stops the perp doing it again - but I don't think many of us would want to be in a Judge Dredd society where that was the rule.
They used to have it, in the 'Off Topic' forum. It was wild. It had a big problem though - separating the merely unpleasant from the illegal. I'm getting some requests to restore it.
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I think the need for moderators is a "no-brainer", especially in forums that are likely to have threads discussing highly contentious issues.
Overall, my experience with the moderators on DPR was fair and reasonable, although a little puzzling in the last month or two when I got wrapped over the knuckles a couple of times with warnings sent to me but no explanation at all which of my posts "stretched" the rules a little too far. Posts that I thought might have offended were still there and some that I thought were clearly within the rules were deleted, and not deleted as part of collateral damage when someone else's post higher up in the same sub-thread of the thread was deleted. I have a very thick skin so I just copped the warnings and moved on trying not to reoffend but it didn't always work out that way.I think many will be aware, since the moderator made it public in the forum, that I am currently banned from posting in the Beginners Questions Forum on DPR. I never found out which was the offending post(s) but I didn't ask either. In fairness to the moderator, he was more than happy to help me by posting a notice about DPRevived.com in the Beginners Forum on my behalf, but I am still banned from the forum :-) I didn't ask for the ban to be lifted.
I think it would help members "rehabilitate" and hopefully not reoffend if moderators here were required to at least notify offenders why the action has been taken against them, with details and not just saying you have been banned/warned/whatever......either with links to offending and not deleted posts or quotes from deleted offending posts.
I think it would help a lot as well, for both ordinary members and moderators, to keep everyone "honest" if there was a clear process to appeal moderator decisions to Admin. I'm not sure what options Admin might have to deal with vexatious or frivolous appeals though.
Anyway, just my 2c worth based on my experience over at DPR Forums.
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Not been a fan of moderaton on DPR. I generally found it to be a bit high handed, obscure, not open as well as too lax over things which society doesn't tolerate well - misogyny and racism
One thing I think would help is having a group of 3 non moderators who could be called on to adjudicate on disputes where moderators have made decisions but the forum member is not happy. I think before any bans are issued the forum members should be asked to vote in some way. Judgment by your peers
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which to my mind is something that should never happen. It tends to happen in contentious issues, where the mod is trying to signal to one side or another the he is with them. Mods shouldn't be taking sides in those kids of dispute. In fact, they shouldn't be trying to stop them, just moderate them if they are becoming abusive. And I can't remember you ever being abusive on DPReview, at least by my own standards of what I'd feel was offensive if someone said it to me.
Absolutely. Moderators should always be giving feedback about the transgression, and they should be following the rules when they do it, that is not being abusive and treating courteously the person they are dealing with. Don't assume malign intent, particularly for someone who is investing a lot of themselves into the forum.
There has to be. People do play games with vexatious appeals, but you can't use that as an excuse for not dealing with the genuine ones. Also, moderators should be extremely wary of extreme sanctions. If someone is a regular forum member and a part of the community, banishing them from their social group forever is an enormous sanction and should really never be done.
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I think judgement by peers can be very unfair and dangerous. For example, the Challenge Discussions Forum at DPR has a very "clicky" cohort of members that would jump on anybody that didn't agree with their views on how the challenges should be run.
I think Admin or a subset of Admin is more appropriate for appeals against moderator actions.
At least if a moderator has too many appeals against them upheld by Admin then maybe Admin might look at whether the moderator is actually suited to that role.
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Moderation is a delicate business. It is needed to sort out personal insults and other gross behaviour like racism and such. It is not needed to "protect" a system or brand from criticism or comparison. I want to know if my choice of gear is not perhaps the best for my type of photography. I want to know if it has some defects like the EM5III baseplate.
I post on Nikon Cafe, and the moderation there is only interested in dealing with personal attacks and rudeness. It works well. I have never had any problems, not even a warning. Heated debates are heathy in my opinion. They make a forum vibrant and interesting.
But my experience on DPR with the moderation was often very negative, especially in the last year or so when they changed the rules. Being studiously polite did not work anymore.
Just a few examples. A thread I stated about shift lenses got me banned (lifted after I Emailed the Admins, who admitted the ban was wrong). It was all about the replies I got, and not even my replies.The Mod did lot like the subject. A guy asked why his camera broke down after taking 18,000 (no it is not a typo) shots in an afternoon. I politely told him maybe he should have been more selective and shot less. In reply this charming fellow wished me that he would like to see me die of cancer. The Mods removed the posts and I expected to see the guy banned. Being one of the faithful few on that forum he was not. I sent PM to the Mod who told me basically to mind my own business. When on the M43 forum sombody would ask about the choice between FF and M43, the words "creamy tonal and colour transitions" were a certain way to earn a ban or the odious "Pre moderation".
I had an interesting Email back and forth with one of the Adims once. Basically he told me that they did not want people upsetting those who were "emotionally attached" to their brand, for reasons we can all immagine. I think this was reflected in the moderation policy of DPR of late.
There were some good moderators, perhaps the vast majority, on DPR, like Jaywol, who it would be a good to get onboard here. The "Prima Donnas" on some forums should be told their services are not needed.
Just some random thoughts.
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I think that the latter tends to go the way of lynching, or tyranny of the majority. That's why most societies have courts rather than leaving it to popular vote who gets hanged or not. It's why attainder, which was a part of the English legal system, is explicitly banned in the US constitution.
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Have the same feeling about this.
Have been an Admin and moderator at a dutch tech community (tweakers.net) many years ago, and did notice at DPR that there were sub sections with had a moderator but he/she/it was not active anymore. Some moderators didn't have been online at the their sections for more than a few months and the one I mentioned hasn't been online at DPR since 2021.
Did mention this and got offered that position as a mod, I declined, just want to be an user, modding days are over for me😁
So you'll have to keep an good eye that moderators stay active an are participating in their section -
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moderation that is not only fair but consistent would be appreciated, one of the problems i perceived with DPR was the partisan nature of some of the decisions
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It's also democracy :)...I don't think we would be voting to hang people. I'd hope not anyway. I'd like to think that the general membership would not be led sheep like into 'lynching' but that's just my optimistic opinion
In any case I believe that before banning decisions are taken there should be some kind of review process involving disinterested parties - a small moderator panel not associated wih other moderators
As mentioned further in this thread, there are several moderators who did not show themselves in the best light over on DPR. think that each subsection should be given the opportunity to elect 'their' moderator(or not as the case may be)
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I know that moderators and DPR staff had their pets and let those pets get away with insulting language and other bad behavior. To be honest, I would ban all previous moderators from being moderators here. Start with a clean slate.
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Would it work to introduce moderation on an "as needed" basis? On DPR's Nikon 1 forum, for example, we haven't had a moderator for the past years, didn't need any, didn't miss any, and it doesn't look as we would need any after transitioning to here. There might other, similar forums like this.
Maybe it would be sufficient to have moderators on the high-volume forums first, and deal with other forums ad-hoc if there are complaints?
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Look the reality as some alluded to is this...there is no way to do this without having a clean slate. Only way to be sure. Moderation has killed dpreview since it was introduced. I would argue that a mod should only be stepping in if racist or severely abusive language is used. Someone lightly suggesting someone is being foolish is not a need to moderate that thread. I cannot stress how much the moderation killed dpreview and stifled discussions constantly. So much so...that when it was announced it was dying...I had already for years seen it as dead or on it's last legs because of this very fact. They have clear bias and even try to protect certain products and companys' with how they moderated. They had clear favourites and protected them; allowing them to have their say but gagged anyone with a contrary opinion under the "stuck record" "rule". Which conveniently allowed their favourite posters' that they shared views with to speak endlessly; but just one mention of a contrary view and it came out. You must realise how pathetic that is. I could not even write this over here without it being deleted. So in a way...this is your first test isn't it?
Moderation should be a very hands off thing and only used in exceptional circumstances. Do you really want the new forum to be like the way the real world is heading? With posters being cancelled and viewpoints stifled? Id have have none of them back because whilst there might be some good moderation there (i am not so sure on this) it is the only way to be sure. No moderation apart from spam and racist language...end of.
Additional. I am reading some of the replies in this thread now with my head in my hands. (Albeit some very good posts too). That said one is poster is using words like "rehabilitate". Look I do not mean to be funny here but...this is not a court. We do not need to draw up a first ammendment style plan of how we ban people or the likes. Honestly I'm sure if someone is banned they just walk away and do something else with their life...maybe they come back under a different name. Does it really matter? Is that a first world problem? Reality check...this is just a forum after all to discuss camera equipment. I would honestly say not to moderate unless exceptional circumstances as free speech is what makes it interesting. There is enough "woke" nonsense in the world as it is without coming here to get it rammed down our throats as well. Let's go back to 2011...leave that crap at the door and let's discuss things in any way we wish. It does not have to be like a creche in here...
Ps is there a dark mode.