Looking for CURATORS

[Guybrush]

Hola, Guest

Both me and Mr. Trollheart really appreciate the momentum we now have. Our little community is growing and we're getting some great threads and discussions up. We thought it might be time to find some moderators.

BUT as you know, SCD is still relatively small. People are civil and the spambots haven't discovered us yet. We're not exactly looking for a police force, but rather someone who can help us reach our vision and goals for this community. As such, we're currently looking for what we've decided to call curators.


What do we mean by curator?

A curator is a volunteer who is the caretaker of a forum. They can sticky topics, edit and move posts, merge things, etc. We're hoping they will work to generally promote activity in their forums and additionally, they may be encouraged to take care of one or two other tasks as well.

PS: A curator does not ban people and will have to report to us or a global mod for that (although at this time, there are no global mods).

Some curators we MAY be looking for and some things we'd hope for them to help us with:

• Curator of the Movies & TV forum (short: maybe curator of visual arts?) - Manages the movie & TV forum and perhaps runs the movie club (although I've currently taken on that role myself)
• Curator of the music forum (or short: curator of music) - Manages the music forum and works to promote activity there and runs an album club
• Curator of the litterature forum (or short: curator of litterature) - Takes care of the litterature forum and perhaps runs a book club?
• Events manager - Curates the events & forum games forum and tries to promote some activity there
• Curator of the Creators corner - Takes care of Creators corner and promotes activity there, perhaps running writers competitions or music compos

Exact titles may change or be up for debate. Also, a curator doesn't have to do everything themselves (like run every club) and we won't actually force anyone to work. We know you're volunteers and are of course free to do something else with your time. But if a forum's curator goes completely radio silent and fails to respond, we may eventually start looking for someone else to take over.

Anyways, we have a couple of names on our list that we hope to bring on board and will contact soon. Maybe that's you, but you can also post here or write me or Trollheart a PM if you think you're the right person for any of this. Don't hesitate!

Also, if you see a role we're missing or have a great idea for something that we or a curator could be doing here, I hope you'll let us know. We want to hear from you.

(Edited in accordance with this post here)

[Toy Revolver]

Haha, thanks for the appeals

Me and Trollheart will put our heads together eventually. The current proposal is to find some roles for our moderators so that they have some defined responsibility beyond just being a mod. We're not planning on being very demanding in terms of work, but maybe someone can try and keep the forum events alive and well while another works to promote journals or album reviews, etc.

I also think there should be a yearly mod team zoom/teams meetup with the mods team so we can have a chat about where we are in terms of goals, plans for the future, etc.

We'll make a thread about it at some point soon, probably.

don't do it - once there's a group of elite insiders the forum sucks - you and th are all that's needed - the mods at mb ruined it - it doesn't matter who gets picked everyone is a lousy mod - if there's a group that can ban me but i can't ban them i will leave - it's anti-equalitarian and i have NEVER seen the power not be abused - you two started the place - you can run it without a team of dilwads who think they're fair

[Comus]

don't do it - once there's a group of elite insiders the forum sucks - you and th are all that's needed - the mods at mb ruined it - it doesn't matter who gets picked everyone is a lousy mod - if there's a group that can ban me but i can't ban them i will leave - it's anti-equalitarian and i have NEVER seen the power not be abused - you two started the place - you can run it without a team of dilwads who think they're fair

Yeah I have to say I agree here to some extent, while mod coverage is useful for when someone joins and starts advertising or spamming porn or something, does that still really happen nowadays? If we're not getting that kind of issue then just let it be Tore and Troll and leave it there.

[Guybrush]

I see your point, OH, but I think your perspective may be skewed by past experience.

The way I see it, moderators are obviously not there to lord over other people or form an elitist class of user. They're there to help you and I have a better forum experience. If they're not doing that, they're not fit for the role. Anyone who takes a moderator role here is going to know fully well that it isn't meant to be self-serving, but to be in service to the greater community. If they can't do that with integrity, they have no place on our mod team.

A big problem with MB is there's no one really present to manage the mods or give them directions. At least there wasn't when I was a mod. Even if you saw another mod doing something they shouldn't, taking it up with them is often kinda useless because they'll just argue against you and either way you're on equal footing, so who are you to make demands? That's not going to be the situation here.

Another reason we'll want moderators is if you're doing a lot of work on the forums, it's nice to be able to edit things and sticky things and rename things, so there's a practical side to it as well. HOWEVER, we may not need many global moderators. Maybe like one in a different timezone? If someone curates a forum or runs an album club or something, it's useful for them to have mod powers in that forum, but they don't need them everywhere. As mentioned elsewhere, we don't really need a police force.

Because you seem to be currently banned from MB (edit: sorry OH, thought you were), I also quickly wanted to address user bans.

The way I see it, we should lean towards forgiveness. A lot of us forum users are weird dorks. Some of us have honest to Darwin mental problems. We're gonna say and do weird things from time to time. Someone may have a tantrum. We've seen that happen on MB a few times where members who added positively to the community suddenly had a very bad day. What would sometimes happen is a mod would come in very heavy handed in a way that of course escalates the situation to where they give the guy a permban. To me, this would be an example of a moderator doing a very poor job. They've now removed an otherwise productive member of the community potentially forever. Things like this should generally not be allowed to happen. If we need to ban someone who is a part of this community, those bans should be temporary. Ultimately, I would want moderators who de-escalate conflicts rather than add to them so that we won't have to ban anyone.

All this to say.. There's a  certain kind of moderator that we all know very well and I'm sure neither me or Trollheart want them here

Edit:

Because we need moderators more for practical reasons than for policing, we could consider limiting moderator powers so that actual policing is left up to admins or perhaps one dedicated global mod or something.

[Guybrush]

@TheNonSexual OccultHawk & @Comus Sorry guys, thought this discussion was off-topic where it was, but quite valuable to this thread.

So I split it to its own thread with the intent to then merge the two topics about moderators. However, I'm just struggling a bit to find out how to merge the two.

edit:

There we go!

[Guybrush]

Sorry for all the gods danged text, but I just had a look at default moderators permissions in SMF.

The general setup here for mods is actually more just someone who can move / merge topics, delete posts and unlock / reset polls etc. Banning other users does not seem to be part of a moderators job. Rather, that is within the realm of global mods and administrators.

Being able to ban members is currently not something we need, so when we when we discuss mods forward, I suggest we stick to that so that we're not talking about someone with the ability to ban other members.

If we need someone with that power, we'll announce our need for a global moderator.

Edit:

Just a quick note about me and Trollheart and how we wield this power. We have a written agreement that we'll check with each other on important decisions. The banning of community integrated members is mentioned here specifically, so we have agreed not to make such decisions on our own. The same is not true for general maintenance tasks which includes banning spambots, so that we can always do on our own.

There's a clause that changes things if one of us goes mysteriously absent, but that shouldn't happen either way, that's how we think about this.

[Toy Revolver]

Because you seem to be currently banned from MB, I also quickly wanted to address user bans.

ftr i am NOT banned from MB i stopped posting there because it's toxic 

[Rubber Soul]

Occult. There is a lot that goes into being a moderator and, as Guybrush says, you need to have someone to moderate the mods, which I have faith that Guy will in fact do.

Guybrush is also right that one of the main duties of a mod is to deescalate a situation and only yield the hammer as a last resort. When I was a mod/supervisor at the writing forum, I saved more than a few members from getting the hammer (and if you think MB is fascist, you should spend a day at WF, even during my time there). Yes, you should be able to express your opinion with only blowback from other members who may disagree with you, but we can never turn a forum into the Wild West.  That's when good people start to leave and the forum ultimately fails.

So, the first priority of a mod is to keep the spammers out obviously, and then maybe move threads or edit them at the request of an OP (I don't know if a member can alter his/her thread title for example). After that though, yes, I guess mods are the cops of a forum, but they should always be mediators first. And they must always practice what they preach. For example, if I bust your chops for making remarks people find homophobic, I should not be making those same remarks myself. In other words, mods should never be above the law.

And neither should Guybrush or Trollheart. If a mod goes nuclear, he/she can always be fired. But if Trollheart decrees that all of us must wear party hats or something, we can always leave with our virtual feet. Anyway, a good mod isn't here to hurt people, on the contrary, a mod is there to ensure that everyone can get along to an extent.

And don't think that Guybrush or Trolls won't yield the hammer if someone becomes especially disruptive.I don't think Guybrush came up with this forum to be a free for all for actual insults and verbal attacks. I sense this will be a loose forum but even a loose forum has to have some boundaries. Otherwise, all you get is Donald Trump, you know what I mean?


Anyway, sorry for the novel, but those are some of my thoughts.

[Guybrush]

^Well put, Rubber Soul and thanks for your faith and support.

About the atmosphere here, I definitely don't want to create an echo chamber as there are far too many of those around and it's not healthy for anyone. So generally speaking, I welcome anyone to discuss anything - and also strongly disagree - as long as they can do so in a civil manner. I believe Trollheart is of a similar mind.

ftr i am NOT banned from MB i stopped posting there because it's toxic 

Sorry OH, I got the wrong impression. I've edited my post slightly so that I don't inadvertently misinform others.

[Toy Revolver]

Occult. There is a lot that goes into being a moderator and, as Guybrush says, you need to have someone to moderate the mods, which I have faith that Guy will in fact do.

Guybrush is also right that one of the main duties of a mod is to deescalate a situation and only yield the hammer as a last resort. When I was a mod/supervisor at the writing forum, I saved more than a few members from getting the hammer (and if you think MB is fascist, you should spend a day at WF, even during my time there). Yes, you should be able to express your opinion with only blowback from other members who may disagree with you, but we can never turn a forum into the Wild West.  That's when good people start to leave and the forum ultimately fails.

So, the first priority of a mod is to keep the spammers out obviously, and then maybe move threads or edit them at the request of an OP (I don't know if a member can alter his/her thread title for example). After that though, yes, I guess mods are the cops of a forum, but they should always be mediators first. And they must always practice what they preach. For example, if I bust your chops for making remarks people find homophobic, I should not be making those same remarks myself. In other words, mods should never be above the law.

And neither should Guybrush or Trollheart. If a mod goes nuclear, he/she can always be fired. But if Trollheart decrees that all of us must wear party hats or something, we can always leave with our virtual feet. Anyway, a good mod isn't here to hurt people, on the contrary, a mod is there to ensure that everyone can get along to an extent.

And don't think that Guybrush or Trolls won't yield the hammer if someone becomes especially disruptive.I don't think Guybrush came up with this forum to be a free for all for actual insults and verbal attacks. I sense this will be a loose forum but even a loose forum has to have some boundaries. Otherwise, all you get is Donald Trump, you know what I mean?


Anyway, sorry for the novel, but those are some of my thoughts.

i don't think mods should be allowed to post on the forums / it should be one or the other

[Guybrush]

i don't think mods should be allowed to post on the forums / it should be one or the other

How would this work? Are you suggesting a shared mod account that we use to moderate users? Or are you suggesting moderators don't post? I think only being here to moderate is a really poor incentive to stick around. Nobody would want that.

[Rubber Soul]

i don't think mods should be allowed to post on the forums / it should be one or the other

Why not? Mods are members too. I can tell you this though. As a mod (if I become one) I won't get involved in any political discussions, sticking mostly to the forums that interest me, like music. A mod has to be neutral when dealing with differing political/religious/social opinions and should only intervene when things get especially nasty. If a mod does get caught up in a rather nasty discussion, another mod should step in without any favoritism towards the involved mod and try to settle things between the warring factions. Look, as Guybrush says, you can be vociferous in your opinions, just be civil about it, like you have been so far.

[Toy Revolver]

i don't think mods should be allowed to post on the forums / it should be one or the other

How would this work? Are you suggesting a shared mod account that we use to moderate users? Or are you suggesting moderators don't post? I think only being here to moderate is a really poor incentive to stick around. Nobody would want that.

i don't think someone with more power should be allowed to join the conversation unless it's their house - i get this is your house but once a regular poster becomes "special" and more powerful all conversations are skewed and dishonest

same reason cops aren't invited to parties- don't need them don't like them

[Toy Revolver]

Why not? Mods are members too. I can tell you this though. As a mod (if I become one) I won't get involved in any political discussions, sticking mostly to the forums that interest me, like music. A mod has to be neutral when dealing with differing political/religious/social opinions and should only intervene when things get especially nasty. If a mod does get caught up in a rather nasty discussion, another mod should step in without any favoritism towards the involved mod and try to settle things between the warring factions. Look, as Guybrush says, you can be vociferous in your opinions, just be civil about it, like you have been so far.

people with power abuse it - always, never seen it go any other way - not at work - not out and about - not on forums

[Rubber Soul]

Yeah, but here's the thing- Mods really aren't all that special. Yeah, I guess mods do have a degree of authority, but with that also comes responsibility. A good mod won't act like he's Big Man on Campus. In fact, you may not even realize he/she is a mod unless you look at the title below the name. I get that some people don't like authority figures, but anarchy just won't work. Do we really want to live in a world where it's eat or be eaten? Anyway, like it or not, mods are an evil necessity in a successful forum.