Forum
Comments:
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- on Sun 18 Oct 2009
- 02:49:05 PM UTC
Re: Lanuage Filter
Language filters are pretty annoying and usually easy to bypass. I think we might be better off with moderators. Any thoughts?
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- on Sun 18 Oct 2009
- 03:46:13 PM UTC
re: moderators
Moderators are an excellent idea.
And we have them: Sami, Timo, Deborah S :-)As for other members of the Community being assigned the role; choose wisely, sometimes it's a difficult job to maintain an unbiased or non-emotional perspective.
I would like to submit a few members for nomination, in an alphabetical order not to be mistaken as a preference of "choice."
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WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Mon 19 Oct 2009
- 07:51:50 PM UTC
Thanks, but
Thanks for the confidence, and you are indeed correct when you say that moderating requires an unbiased and un-emotional approach. And also that that's difficult to maintain.
From my years as moderating on the McAfee forums, it was extremely difficult to hold my tongue. Being free to express myself now is a luxury that I enjoy.
But I not only agree that we already have moderators, in the person of the WOT staff, but also the community itself does a pretty good job of policing the threads.
The few errant posts, like the one Warxas was referring to, may or may not be deleted by moderators. A lot depends on how the WOT staff views them. (Though vulgar language is clearly a no-no). WOT staff have been notoriously willing to allow "the expression of opinion", and in general I applaud that.
Which reminds me, if WOT staff chooses to use a moderator from the community, they're going to have to make sure that person understands the approach that WOT staff takes toward posts . . . which may parhaps be a complicated learning experience.
In any case, moderators may very well be called for eventually, and we are probably nearing that critical mass, but I don't think we're quite there yet.
It might be a good time now for WOT staff to start preparing their candidates (or selecting them), so that when the time comes they're ready to go.
In that regard, let me thank you again for the confidence, but let me also save the WOT staff some time . . . If nominated, I would decline.
Edit:Oh, BTW, g7w . . . you yourself would be a good candidate.
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- on Mon 19 Oct 2009
- 08:17:33 PM UTC
Not interested
I'm flattered that you would consider me, but I'm not interested in a moderator role at this time.
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- on Mon 19 Oct 2009
- 05:19:06 AM UTC
how about top 3 most active
how about top 3 most active users (that can't go wrong...)
1,g7w
2.xxz
3.Warxas -
- on Mon 19 Oct 2009
- 09:34:08 AM UTC
top 3 most active
This list is dynamic..
You'll Never Walk Alone -
- on Mon 19 Oct 2009
- 10:04:13 PM UTC
Moderators!
A Moderator would have to have the time to review / comment and thus would have to be on the site almost all day and night. If you take our most active members as Mods, I believe this would take away from their active role as raters. Unless they accept this responsibility, I would like to see someone from the WOT staff to moderate the forums.
Most if not all of the active raters are still employed and have Family life. This would take away from the quality of life that their Families now enjoy by having their parents and in some cases , their best friend ,around . A delicate balance to be sure.
I am in no way taking away from the capabilities of these top raters, on the contrary, it is only to point out that this kind of responsibility comes with draw backs as pointed out by BobJam.
Athlonite.
Your help is always needed.
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- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 12:10:00 PM UTC
Re: Moderators!
I wasn't thinking of moderators who need to approve each message, but instead people who can delete spam and inappropriate comments when they see them. This shouldn't take too much time for users who already check the forum every now and then.
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- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 03:34:21 PM UTC
Casual?
So you're talking about "casual" moderating?
And you would need to make it clear what "inappropriate comments" are. Some people think "inappropriate" is one thing, while others don't. If you don't clarify for everyone, I can see someone objecting to a deleted post on the grounds that it wasn't "inappropriate". If you don't do that, then you will either be forced to replace the post (which would lead to accusations that the moderator doesn't know what h/she is doing), or support the moderator even if you disagree.
So, I disagree that it "shouldn't take too much time". The moderator, in some cases, may have to stop and read the post closely for nuances of being "inappropriate" Of course, some posts (particularly ones with vulgar language) may be easily identifiable and require only a quick skim.
But others may not. For example, when we suffered that stormfront nonsense, some would have deleted those trolling posts (codhead and PHung come to mind), considering them "inappropiately racist", and others may have chosen just to let them go. You're going to have to make that type of circumstance very clear, to both the mod AND the community. If you don't, you're likely to have a mutiny on your hands by some members, and the mod is going to be placed in an almost impossible situation. Not fair to either side.
And the mod is going to have to be extremely mature and responsible.
That doesn't sound like something "casual" to me. Nor does it sound like something that can be done quickly and at the same time professionally. Launching into moderation without some clear definitions (yours, that is) could very well light up the board with arguments about what should and should not have been deleted.
I would be careful about using the term "inappropriate" . . . too much room for misunderstanding there.
Moderating can't be a halfhearted effort, plagued by misunderstandings. It's all or none. To me, anyway, it's not as simple as you make it out to be.
Right now, you and the rest of the WOT staff have not only the respect of the community (well earned I might add) but are clearly the ones that make the rules. A new moderator may not have that same regard.
Start him/her off on the right foot.
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- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 11:28:03 PM UTC
Re: Casual?
And you would need to make it clear what "inappropriate comments" are
I'm referring to using language unsuitable for a family friendly website, personally insulting other users, or posting clearly illegal content, for example. We're not interested in silencing anyone's opinions, no matter how unpopular they may be, and would obviously make that clear to anyone moderating the forum.
That doesn't sound like something "casual" to me.
It doesn't require that much time to filter out the occasional spam or bad language, but since we all need to sleep sometimes, we've been thinking it might be nice to have one or two moderators living in a different time zone who could react more quickly to messages posted during the night time. We don't have immediate plans for this though, it was just a thought.
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- on Wed 21 Oct 2009
- 01:12:32 AM UTC
Language filtering?
Could there be a possibility of a language filtering system for WOT. Or do translations get in the way?
~DragonMaster Jay, malware researcher,
Admin, helpmyos.com -
- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 08:07:44 PM UTC
I would think...
Inappropriate would be something out of the ordinary that is unwanted. For example, if somebody comes in and starts throwing out garbage words and mean (non-constructive) comments, then it should be considered inappropriate. I would doubt that a simple argument that is constructive would be deemed inappropriate.
~DragonMaster Jay, malware researcher,
Admin, helpmyos.com -
- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 10:43:01 PM UTC
re: inappropriate comments
My opinion of inappropriate comments would be swearing or flaming; anything that would not be suited for a "Approved for all ages" movie rating.
Spam... fairly easy to detect especially if you review the commentor's profile and notice 0 ratings 5 board comments and they're all senseless. lol.
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WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Tue 20 Oct 2009
- 10:59:02 PM UTC
Can of worms
Human-user moderation of posts opens them.
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- on Wed 21 Oct 2009
- 02:01:28 AM UTC
Echo
This community is composed of a lot of technically astute, but at the same time, some individuals with strong opinions. In rating, they are fair minded and suppress those opinions when necessary.
Nevertheless, in this forum opinions may have the upper hand. Again, I applaud your efforts to tolerate unpopular notions voiced in this forum, but you're going to have to make sure whoever you choose to moderate suppresses their own opinions when reviewing posts.
As I said, the obvious circumstances of vulgar language. spamming, and such, (as you also pointed out) are pretty easy to spot.
However, "personal attacks" may require more than casual evaluation. I can see the language barrier confusing that issue (it's happened here more than once . . . that Timo/stormfront/codhead/cotojo flap is a good example). I experienced that myself in another forum. What I thought was a rude, abrasive, personal attack turned out to be the misuse of idioms in English by a non-English speaker. Had I been moderating that forum I might have deleted that post as a personal attack . . . in error.
You guys at WOT have been good at correcting errors shortly after they have been made . . . Timo's clarification in that stormfront issue comes to mind.
Again, vulgar language, spam and such is pretty easy to spot. It's the other stuff that I'm concerned about, and the fragmentation of this community (taking sides) if a moderator doesn't apply what may be the wisdom of Solomon.
Probably a little too dramatic there, but my point is that a moderator other than you guys is going to have to be well accepted by the community, and even then may have a difficult time.
So, I agree with amishrabbit sort of . . . human-user moderation by anyone other than the owners is a slippery slope. It's not an impossible task, but does indeed require maturity and sound judgment, especially for this community.
Glad to hear that you guys are giving this some serious thought.
Lanuage Filter
Can we get one on these forums/message boards.
With the few trolls that recently came through, there were quite a few profane posts in the last few threads.
I really think we need language filters on scorecard comments as well.
Would this be easy to implement WOT staff? Only because, I think WOT is supposed to be family friendly, right?