Moderator Elections

[roguerouge]

With EN World 2 just around the corner and with a new edition coming out, I was thinking that the time might be ripe to discuss making one change: have one moderator be elected by those with Community Supporter accounts.

Advantages:
* Money. Another tangible advantage liking voting rights to being a community supporter may lead to more money flowing to the creators of this site, which would especially help at this time period in the gaming industry.
* Many Hands Make Light Work. Extra moderators means distributing the burdens more lightly among them all.
* A Republic, not a Mob. Since community supporters are rather like delegates (they're heavily invested in the system and the society), such a representative would be both responsible and open up the process of site governance.
* Promotes Discussion. A Community Supporter Representative would have more influence with moderators to express particular viewpoints.
* Influence, not Anarchy or Disruption. Obviously, when there's just one elected moderator, the other moderators and site owners have the power. The real-world analogy would be that this moderator acts more like a "citizen advisory board member" than like a governor.

 

[Piratecat]

Thank you for the suggestion, but that's not going to happen. We select moderators on a very specific set of criteria which includes their activity, their even-tempered nature, their common sense, their impartiality, and how well we'll get along with them. We're very comfortable with appointing the right person. That won't change.

We welcome other ideas for ways to make community supporter accounts even snazzier, though!

 

[WhatGravitas]

Money. Another tangible advantage liking voting rights to being a community supporter may lead to more money flowing to the creators of this site, which would especially help at this time period in the gaming industry.

I dunno why, but this sounds like a bad idea. I liked the idea that non-CS are still "part of the community" in many ways, just had no access to the more involved features, like search (well, and PM).

Which ties into this:

Promotes Discussion. A Community Supporter Representative would have more influence with moderators to express particular viewpoints.

Erm... so basically, moderators should stop trying to keep everything civil and instead favour CS? Or do you mean something else - because what is the other influence of a moderator besides moderating the discussion?

Many Hands Make Light Work. Extra moderators means distributing the burdens more lightly among them all.

Personally, I think the moderators keep selecting new moderators, when they need them - so I assume we already have a fitting number of moderators. And having too much of them is bad as well... so if you want to keep the current number, who do you want to get rid off?

A Republic, not a Mob. Since community supporters are rather like delegates (they're heavily invested in the system and the society), such a representative would be both responsible and open up the process of site governance.

First, we already have the meta boards and e-mails for contacting moderators for such issues, second: The moderators are also heavily invested, often much more than normal members, also:

Influence, not Anarchy or Disruption. Obviously, when there's just one elected moderator, the other moderators and site owners have the power. The real-world analogy would be that this moderator acts more like a "citizen advisory board member" than like a governor.

You assume that non-CS would do more than ignore the "elected" status. And CS are - usually - already invested in the community, so they're less likely to disrupt.

Furthermore, on which grounds are you going to select candidates? Popularity vote? Current mod vote (which close to the current process)?

Not saying that your idea is completely bad, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Especially, because ENWorld moderators already do a hell of a job, and I fear "elected" mods may be worse - and how do you get rid of them, if they're doing things wrong, they're community elected, after all.

EDIT: The Piratecat got me and posted faster and more concise than me...

We welcome other ideas for ways to make community supporter accounts even snazzier, though!

Put it the feature that they can browse faster, if the boards are clogged, i.e. give them priority processing and bandwidth!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I could see the campaign slogan now:

"A vote for me is a vote for banhammer immunity!"

Nah, I would rather its stays the way they've done it up until now. They have done a great job of selecting Moderators (with the exception of Rel, of course, but as long as they learned from their mistake it's OK ).

 

[roguerouge]

I think the reason why I suggested this idea is that, in my 7 years of teaching media studies, no student of mine has ever belonged to an internet community where they had even minimal or indirect say in the governance of their community. They all spend an awful lot of time in virtual communities that might best be described as benign dictatorships or oligarchies. (No offense intended.)

And that really, really worries me, given how much time we spend online.

What are we accustoming ourselves to in these societies we are not born into, but actively choose to join?

Yes, there would be problems to figure out and this thread was designed to raise them and discuss them. But I hardly feel that they they couldn't be solved.

 

[Morrus]

I think the reason why I suggested this idea is that, in my 7 years of teaching media studies, no student of mine has ever belonged to an internet community where they had even minimal or indirect say in the governance of their community.

That would be an interesting social experiment, but you're better off building something from the ground up to accomodate that.

They all spend an awful lot of time in virtual communities that might best be described as benign dictatorships or oligarchies. (No offense intended.)

None taken. It's a dictatorship; nobody denies that.

And I'd further argue that such places need to be; "shared" projects never get anywhere. A single vision directing things (with valued input, as is normal in life) is what makes things happen when it comes to websites.

And that really, really worries me, given how much time we spend online.

What are we accustoming ourselves to in these societies we are not born into, but actively choose to join?

I think you're overstating the importance of it. It's not a political entity or a nation-state. EN World has no effect or influence on peoples' lives, well-being, liberty, wealth, or anything else. It has none of the duties, responsibilities or powers of a government. People are not "trapped" here in any way - they can leave at a moment's notice; they don't even have to do anything, they simply need not click on their EN World bookmark!

The analogy isn't one of a society; it's one of visiting someone's private home and respecting their authority within that location. I think the important thing to realise is this: it's not important. It's just a D&D website.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

What are we accustoming ourselves to in these societies we are not born into, but actively choose to join?

I can see where you're coming from - but the one nifty thing that mitigates that is that we are also learning that we can create these communities from scratch all by ourselves, just be applying some very basic skills - after all, creating a new forum is amazingly simple...

While on the one hand, when joining an existing community like ENWorld you may not have direct input, if you want to you can easily create your own place with your own rules.

 

[diaglo]

Thank you for the suggestion, but that's not going to happen. We select moderators on a very specific set of criteria which includes their activity, their even-tempered nature, their common sense, their impartiality, and how well we'll get along with them. We're very comfortable with appointing the right person. That won't change.

We welcome other ideas for ways to make community supporter accounts even snazzier, though!

i so wanna handle the banhammer. i would use it like a lt governor handing out stays of execution while the governor is incapacitated.

oh wait. i just did. curses foiled again.

 

[Umbran]

What are we accustoming ourselves to in these societies we are not born into, but actively choose to join?

To normal human society, I think. While overall American governance may be a form of democracy, it is commonly not at all democratic on the local scale. In a great many places, we accept the fact that the rules are not in our direct control. In this sense, EN World is hardly different than, say, your workplace, or school. Or even the local movie theater.

I think there's a major point here in that this is a society we actively choose to join. And they are also perfectly free to actively or passively choose to leave. People come and go from online communities all the time because they don't like their tone and governance, and they find someplace new to hang out.

That sounds a lot like accustoming ourselves to freedom of choice, to me.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Nah, I would rather its stays the way they've done it up until now. They have done a great job of selecting Moderators (with the exception of Rel, of course, but as long as they learned from their mistake it's OK).

I don't know if you're joking about Rel, but I agree with that statement. I haven't liked his moderation at all.

Instead of just being negative, I'll leave this on a positive note. Since returning here after hearing about 4e, I've seen generally good acts of moderation from the following: Plane Sailing, Umbran, Dinkeldog, and I think, Darkness. When threads heat up they first try try to cool things down and when they do have to take action they just state their ruling, the rules broken and direct questions and comments to e-mail. Good job guys.

The moderators I haven't mentioned I just don't remember having seen them in action recently, so don't feel like I'm knocking you guys.

Sam