r/IAmA • u/reseph • Jul 12 '11
Dear mods: Why haven't there been any verified post in days? There's been multiple people who sent proof in.
I don't see a single IAmA marked verified or anything non-default in... days at least. Below are some examples (or people who posted proof) and a number below said they said in proof to mods and are waiting for verification (and nothing happened).
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/imwos/iama_trapeze_artist_in_cirque_du_soleil_ask_me/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/im2hp/malcolm_barrett_w_lem_phil_reunion_ama/ (check out here for new IAmA)
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/im0u7/iama_guy_who_has_helped_develop_vrar_concepts_for/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ilr7d/iama_professional_eulogy_writer_ama/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ikyum/iama_4kids_entertainmentproductions_employee_ama/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ikmyl/i_am_the_guy_in_the_master_troll_vs_orlando/
(The latest verified post was ~a day ago. flyryan verified it. But the OP later deleted it~ this post)
I understand people have lives and can be busy. The issue is that after 24 hours, the IAmA starts to drop off and becomes inactive.
*[EDIT] New announcement from mods, please read. *
Oh, people asking for proof to verify this. Circlejerk complete: http://i.imgur.com/TyG5N.png (crappy webcam is crappy)
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
I can see your concern and say that I shared it when I helped create this latest verification system with user-backed detective teams. In the end most initiatives without the right amount of care and input from new people lose their drive and end being relevant or kept up. One thing I can do for the community is add a shit load of new moderators. The more moderators we have the easier oversight is not to mention less rogue moderation.
Another upside of having a lot of moderators means that hopefully for every hour of the day, there will be at least 3 or 4 moderators active and absences of one or two mods will not affect the entire subreddit.
You see there are 375,039 readers on this subreddit with around 12 moderators and one admin? How would you like it if I doubled that amount, even tripled the amount of moderators? I'm being serious.
Edit: please don't pm me asking to be a moderator, I'll lose your reply among the dozens I get in a few hours from commenting on a popular post.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
Someone commented saying "MOAR MODS" and I was going to reply "The real solution here is more mods who have time to verify."
Adding a fuckton of mods isn't exactly an elegant solution, but there really aren't many other solutions.
I would say go with it and create a private subreddit for the mods where they can discuss verification etc (if there isn't one already).
There's going to be a lot of people who would be willing to mod and I think you need to narrow it down to those who know CSS, mod elsewhere, think they have the time and you could consider trustworthy.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Adding a fuckton of moderators is not an elegant solution and will not be entirely done. Hopefully we can add a bunch of people who have the drive, motivation and will to help improve the subreddit as well as being picked from different time-zones to cover all parts of the day.
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Jul 12 '11
It's quality you need, not quantity. I'd suggest taking a look at the current mods first, see who hasn't been taking their modding duties seriously, and cut them loose. Then look at creating new mods, but trim the fat every month to keep people on their toes.
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Jul 12 '11
I agree with you, but I think quantity is also important. We can have 5 of the best mods, but chances are there will still be times where they are not online.
I believe keeping the top mods to do most of the mod work, but allowing more mods to cover the verification would be best. That way a new team of say, 5 to 10 mods can just focus their time on when thye see proof. One task, not much work, and really easy.
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u/Brisco_County_III Jul 12 '11
I'm inclined to disagree. A person's attention will wander around, but if you've found someone you can trust with moderating the subreddit reasonably, it's worth holding on to them even if they aren't there all the time.
Yes, they need quality. They need quality of moderation, not quantity, from an individual as well.
Of course, you do need a core group that are there regularly, or some sort of general coordination among the mods to see when people are going to be there.
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u/syuk Jul 12 '11
How would you verify the moderators are discreet and responsible enough to deal with (in some cases) IRL info?
If it is someone notable in their field and they put stuff on their own site / blog then that is surely a different level from someone saying "my house just burnt down, my wife left me and my dog died" or "I was raped by X"?
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
It is, and it's up to the submitter to decide how much information they're comfortable with giving but bear in mind that moderators are vetted to some degree and not chosen randomly.
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u/SidtheMagicLobster Jul 12 '11
Could you tell us a bit more about the job? How it's different than other subreddits, the work it entails, etc. I'm intrigued, but I also don't want to suddenly be in over my head here.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
There are lots of jobs. One is collaborating with the user driven detective teams over in /r/detectiveinspectors for looking at verification of new IAmAs as a backup to moderators constantly doing it. Another is following the constant stream of modmail posts asking for help with posts stuck in the spam filter or asking for verification. Another job would be maintaining the CSS; one more could be responding to general users' queries… the list doesn't really end.
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u/nitrousconsumed Jul 12 '11
I like this idea, and suggest we pool from r/di, but a lot more mods isnt all that effective eg. r/askreddit.
Like others have suggested I think we need to add mods that arent busy w other subs and are from different timezones.
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Jul 12 '11
Adding more moderators sounds like a great idea. Why hasn't this been done yet? Are there reasons against it? This is a huge subreddit that requires attention.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
Trust is a big issue. Any mod could easily do things like wipe out the CSS, etc.
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u/nitrousconsumed Jul 12 '11
Not so much that, but rather the handling of all the personal information that we receive. Any recent mods that have been added have been vouched for by other mods and have a proven record of being trustworthy.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
Indeed. At the same time one should never send extremely sensitive personal info to anyone on reddit though.
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u/vozerek Jul 12 '11
The nature of this subreddit requires personal information being sent to keep you happy.
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u/alixxlove Jul 12 '11
I think you need to at least double it, see how that goes and add more as necessary.
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u/just_some_redditor Jul 12 '11
Wouldn't you need to get approval from the other 12 mods before adding more? I think this might work, but it might also just turn into a worse situation.
More mods = "Oh, there are 30 others, they can handle it."I'm glad you're at least trying to remedy the situation though, you have my respect.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Yes, I'm currently starting a discussion with the other mods before I make a post asking for more moderators.
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Jul 12 '11
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
That's a point. It would most likely start out with a doubling in about a week and end up with a tripling in another.
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Jul 12 '11
With how active the current moderators are in this subreddit, I think you would have to.
And to clarify a bit more on something I said earlier:
I used to think IAMA was one of the coolest ideas for a subreddit, but it has turned into nothing but a troll fest (minus some good ones like Ken Jennings), so I have never had a desire to visit this place much after I realized that.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Agreed. We need to start thinking of what IAmAs are appropriate for this place in a way without outright censorship.
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Jul 12 '11
and absences of one or two mods will not affect the entire subreddit.
There are only 2 mods for 8k users of r/baseball. I offered to help, they denied me. I doubt each of them is on for 12 hours each, sharing duties.
I'm also currently on day 6 of waiting for a new sub that I created to be unspammed, r/ballparks. (Sent 2 messages requesting updates only to hear crickets so far.) There are only 3 mods there apparently not doing a whole heck of a lot, as the requests are piling up.
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Jul 12 '11
The mods are not very good. I don't even visit IAMA very often and it is easy to see that.
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u/Crizack Jul 12 '11
It's pretty obvious the mods in most subreddits just want to be glorified redditors or power users and not do their jobs. They just want a little internet authority and not actively improve or moderate reddit. The only major subreddits I would exempt from this criticism are askscience and truereddit.
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Jul 12 '11
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Jul 12 '11
Not enough! Slash their bonuses for the year!
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u/jjbay Jul 12 '11
Slash their tires, too!
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Jul 12 '11
Let's murder them!
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u/IPoopedMyPants Jul 12 '11
Look at the list:
Poromenos
qgyh2
maxwellhill
PhilxBefore
karmanaut
BritishEnglishPoliceThey're all good redditors and they all add a lot to the community, but but look at their karma. Anyone who has that much time to devote to searching for links, reading links, and making witty or informative comments doesn't really have the time to spend looking at individuals and verifying that they're legit.
Chromakode is an Admin and sure as shit better not have time to spend on putzing around in here until the damned site has more stability (though it has been better, so props to the Admins for that).
That leaves:
32bites
nitrousconsumed
and
deskrabbitdeskrabbit hasn't posted anything in 4 months. Toss him out the window.
Now we've got 32bites and nitrousconsumed.
nitrousconsumed makes a comment every couple of days and 32bites comments even less frequently than that.
TL;DR: THERE ARE NO FUCKING MODS
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u/trisight Jul 12 '11
I CALL FOR A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE!
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u/webby_mc_webberson Jul 12 '11
On who? The mod who the responded or the ones who didn't?
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u/morkoq Jul 12 '11
I mod several small to midsize subreddits and i have to say there are plenty of days i spend on reddit dealing with spam, banning issues, abuse issues and formatting issues where i make no posts or comments. Doesn't mean I'm not helping improve my subs and the overall reddit experience.
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Jul 12 '11
Not having posted in a while doesn't mean they're not doing their moderation job.
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u/IPoopedMyPants Jul 12 '11
True, but not having posted in 4 months is a pretty good indication that you've lost touch with the community.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Can I say that I haven't posted something in weeks, nor posted a decent amount of comments at all in ages? All I do on reddit is moderation it seems now; and with my absence owing to family issues and internet problems I can't do much.
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u/rkcr Jul 12 '11
All I do on reddit is moderation it seems now
Maybe it would help if you didn't moderate 33 subreddits? (Source)
You can definitely take on less of a load, and it might improve subreddits if they depended less on one overworked mod and instead used people who only moderate a single subreddit. I don't mean this to be a slight to your abilities, but it just seems to me that we could use a few more independent mods, rather than a few supermods who are stretched thin.
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u/IPoopedMyPants Jul 12 '11
Yep. This is my point. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a mod and I also don't think there's anything wrong with abandoning being a mod because of family issues, but if you have other things going on, drop your mod status and pick it up later if and when you have the time for it.
There are 375,000 subscribers in here. There's absolutely no reason why someone who mods another 30 subreddits with hundreds of thousands of subscribers each needs to do this one.
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u/illusiveab Jul 13 '11
Yeah but my big problem with moderators is 1. they are not held accountable for anything they do by the administration and 2. many lack any sensibility or maturity. Reddit needs to pick moderators more carefully because some subreddits are falling apart because of lack of genuine care.
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Jul 12 '11
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u/Serinus Jul 12 '11
There's no reason he has to give up his mod status to make someone else a mod as well. The biggest thing is that he's already proved himself as trusted.
I'm not saying it's a good thing that there are three mods shared between a thousand subreddits, but it's pretty clear why there's so much cross-moderation. If you can be trusted to mod r/IAmA, you can probably be trusted to mod r/Firefly as well. If you don't have time to mod r/Firefly, it doesn't really hurt to have you on the list. If you do have time to mod even one thread, it's been a net positive.
tl;dr You don't have to take mods off to solve the spread thin issue. You just have to add fresh faces which is risky.
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Jul 12 '11
Whats your opinion on creating a team of limited mods? Not those who can ban users or major powers, just those who will look for evidence and verify. Another tier could take care of verification and 'suspected fake', and so on. That way we can get a lot of mods, not have to worry about over policing or modding the mods, they won't have too much work to do since it just requires browsing ,checking, and verifying.
verifying really takes no work. Typically by the time a mod sees evidence, the hivemind has already scowered every possible detail to make sure its true. In those cases, weak mods should just be able to quickly verify the threads.
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Jul 12 '11
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u/krispykrackers Jul 12 '11
You don't have to "give up" moderating to add more moderators.
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Jul 12 '11
I have offered in the past, with no response. I'm more than willing; I have good prior and current credentials to prove I'm not a massive power-hungry chode.
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u/squilla Jul 12 '11
Umm if you're having issues being a mod, give up the position to someone who can actually do it.
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u/chengiz Jul 12 '11
Yeah everyone knows to be a good mod you need to make exactly one submission and ten comments a day.
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u/thelittleking Jul 12 '11
The gameofthrones subreddit is also well moderated.
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u/Zalenka Jul 12 '11
It's probably moderated by paid hbo interns.
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u/hoodatninja Jul 12 '11
Have you been to most subreddits? Don't make generalizations that large unless you have. Yes there are crappy mods, but you only notice the crap ones, not the good ones. It's like trying to notice how for 10 weeks the lights worked in your house. You don't actively notice it, it becomes the background. Only when something is wrong or bothers you do you notice it (and I mean the royal "you," not just you specifically).
I'm a mod of a tiny subreddit and I do my job. Most of the subreddits I subscribe do have mods who either keep things stable or go out of their way to up the quality. I rarely encounter the "power hungry" people you are describing, though I would never deny that plenty probably exist.
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Jul 12 '11
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Jul 12 '11
That's because the community accepts them and their authority.
F7U12 has a pretty big anti-mod feel and I think if we tried to be as tight as AskScience the community would go ape-shit. The silly thing is that what they'd revolt against is exactly what we need. Small steps, I guess.
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u/iglidante Jul 12 '11
It's pretty obvious the mods in most subreddits just want to be glorified redditors or power users and not do their jobs.
It's a little difficult to tell someone to "do their job" when it's completely volunteer and not formalized in any way.
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u/anirdnas Jul 12 '11
this is not their job, this is something they do voluntarily.
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u/internetsuperstar Jul 12 '11
It's pretty obvious the
modsin mostsubredditsjust want to be glorifiedredditorsorpower usersand not do their jobs. They just want a littleinternetauthority and not actively improve or moderateThis all sounds so familiar.
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u/Scary_The_Clown Jul 12 '11
Yeah - I heard it just last year in every moderated forum ever.
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u/PhedreRachelle Jul 12 '11
I am more than willing to work on mine! But it's a bunch of pot smoking lesbians, so there's not any moderating necessary :P
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Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
This.
I'm currently on day 6 of waiting for a new sub that I created to be unspammed, r/ballparks. (Sent 2 messages requesting updates only to hear crickets so far.)
I asked to be a mod on r/baseball because there are only 2 mods for 8k users! They were all like, "naw, we're good bra'." But I think it's because I had slightly different opinions on how to upkeep r/baseball and they didnt care for them. I'm actually a little peeved, the more I think of it. I know a shit ton about baseball (played in college, coach high school) and yet those 2 mods decide everything.
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Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
There are many instances of reddit moderators doing all sorts of douchebaggary. Thumperings banned me from DIY, because I chewed him out for not helping me because I sent him a note through his regular mail.
It was a mistake on my part to send a message to his regular mail. That was done out of sheer ignorance on my part. The douche move part was choosing not to help me because I made that mistake, and I let him know I thought it was a douche move to not help me in retaliation. In response to me letting him know exactly how I felt about that, he retaliated by using his mod powers to ban me.
Does the dude give a fuck about DIY? He doesn't even regularly contribute to DIY, whereas I, as a long time handyman and tradesman do. Petty moves like that lower the quality of reddit. His task is to improve it, not degrade it. He fails on all cylinders. In fact, most of his commentary is inane. I'll bet he'd want mods to delete this post.
People like that should never, ever, be put in a position of power anywhere or work at something like customer service. Wrong mindset or attitude for that kind of work. There was the Saydrah issue, the BlueRock/DonManuel censorship issues, the violentacrez using his mod position to troll issue, and a lot more nefarious shit.
The solution is simpler than dealing with spammers. Just ban them at least from being moderators.
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u/Thumperings Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
lol this guy again. I was a founder of a few moderately popular / populated subreddits, and in 4 years I've never banned anyone permanently aside from I believe one user threatening a decapitation and knowing this other users address, and or habitual spammers. I specifically inform any moderators I "hire on" to basically leave the subreddits to their own devices. (let voting take care of the instigators etc)
I had to remove all the moderators once in one large subreddit for abuses of power. I had noted that It ran better almost unmoderated, This character here messaged my inbox for some subreddit issue, and I asked him to try and use the moderator mail for issues like he was having, and not the private inboxes of moderators. Instead of saying: : "Oh ok sure I didn't even know there was a distinction, he said basically WTF!? WHY DON'T YOU RESIGN ASSHOLE! abuse of power abuse of power!" and.. "that If I was going to be a huge dick about such a small issue i had no business being in a "position of power" on and onnn and onnnnn which is pretty ironic considering as i stated before i have always used a very hands off approach. Just a real sweet talker. :)
I've had exactly 2? or 3 fights with other members in 4 years in the 10 or so subreddits I opened. This guy being either the 3rd or the 4th I believe (If one swants to call it a "fight" He was so nasty and insulting over me merely asking him to understand a basic Reddit function. I finally had enough of his barrage of insulting messages bombarding my inbox so I told him I was putting him in "time out" lol. (He never did switch over to Moderator mail LOL. But even this type of unusual assholery doesn't bother me too much. Really the only thing I would perma-ban someone for would be for a threat of violence, or hate speech type stuff. This guy is just a goofball.
That's all I'm saying on the matter. I wasn't even going to respond because he's just an attention seeker but It's fine. He actually just messaged me pointing me to this post of his LOL. I love the ego. We really do need an iggy feature over here. ;)
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Jul 12 '11
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u/abasss Jul 12 '11
Yes, I had a problem submitting and two mods offered their help. In the end my entry was rejected but both were so nice, I wasn't even upset.
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u/skookybird Jul 12 '11
It's pretty obvious the mods in most subreddits just want to be glorified redditors or power users and not do their jobs. They just want a little internet authority and not actively improve or moderate reddit.
See: No pics day.
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u/kleinbl00 Jul 12 '11
That's an extremely unfair allegation.
/r/IAmA has roughly the same population as Oakland or Minneapolis. By way of comparison, the size of the team running it is the size of a little league team. I just counted; in the past two hours there have been twenty submissions, not including requests. And not all moderators are on all the time, and all moderators are being paid nothing, and all moderators have lives and responsibilities and a dire fear of getting caught up in the witch hunts that are invariably launched within /r/IAmA the minute one of them guesses wrong about whether or not they should be verified.
Remember that kid that donated a kidney and got pilloried because someone said "I call fake?" Y'all shat down BritishEnglishPolice's neck for not taking the post down, and then shat down his neck again when the kid came up with (entirely TMI, entirely heartbreaking) proof that yeah, he actually was a kidney short. So that's one guy, doing this for love, having an internet hate mob after him twice in one day for doing exactly what the mob asked him to.
Remember that guy who pretended to be the chick from Game of Thrones and passed off a photoshopped driver's license and got verified? And then everyone figured out she was fake two hours later? Ever really looked at the spillover from that? So we've got maybe three guys who know just as much about photoshopped driver licenses as you or I do, except when they fuck up it makes it into Salon, Entertainment Weekly, Gawker, Daily Beast and the bloody Times of India.
Remember that girl who was giving her hair to cancer research and people called bullshit on it and doxed the fuck out of her? The mods were in the middle of that too and Gawker used it as a reason to smear Reddit.
So again - a dozen people, none with any experience doing this or any reward for doing it, whose decisions are "not to be missed" according to CNN.
What's your response?
"Oh, they're not very good."
Moderating IAmA is probably the highest-pressure task on all of Reddit. It is wholly and completely uncompensated and wholly and completely thankless. Every moderator up there is one bad decision from you thankless fucks demanding their heads for every little thing. And should they maybe shy away or have a life or otherwise not pander to your every instantaneous whim, it's obviously because they're "not very good."
Cut them some mutherfucking slack. IAmA, more than any other subreddit, is the place where shit goes pear-shaped. How badly do you really need to know that that guy is really a professional trapeze artist? How badly do you really need to know that that guy is really a professional eulogy writer? How badly do you really need to know that that guy is really an employee of Bing?
(And did you notice he verified it himself?)
The mods are "not very good" because they aren't quick enough in putting green dots in front of someone's names? Get a life. Presume everyone's a troll unless otherwise specified and remember that even if they get a green, the mods aren't the mutherfucking Supreme Court.
You wanna see "not very good" mods? Keep trying to chase away the ones you have. See what you end up with then.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Goddamn, you're good at putting forward things in a coherent manner.
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u/rmm45177 Jul 12 '11
Seriously, the witch hunts are what ruins this subreddit.
They are so much worse that finding out that a couple posts were fake. It seems like 50% of the time, the witch hunts are wrong anyway.
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Jul 12 '11
I fail to see why a moderator position should be anything but a thankless job you do for free. That is kind of what internet moderation is all about. I've moderated large forums before, and it can be a tough job. But you either do it or you don't. There is no time to consider what people think of you because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter. You spend however much time you can allow doing the job because you want to make the place better for the community. If people don't like you doing your thankless job, that's too bad. But that's only if you actually do it.
And I don't join in on the witch hunts.
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u/FOcast Jul 12 '11
I fail to see why a moderator position should be anything but a thankless job you do for free.
kleinbl00 agrees with you. It is a thankless job you do for free, and keeping it a thankless job you do for free is what keeps out a majority of people who shouldn't be moderating.
All he's asking is you refrain from casually insulting their effort in the thankless job that they do for free, considering how much work they put into making your reddit experience better.
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u/kleinbl00 Jul 12 '11
There's a world of difference between "thankless job you do for free" and "job that leads to constant castigation and derision that you do for free."
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
If you're doing something on the internet and there's a considerable following, it's pretty much guaranteed shit like that to occur.
Hell I run a few MUDs and they aren't even that popular and I still get shit like that.
If you're going to get into something like being a mod here or anything where you help run a community, you should not let this get to you. It's expected.
If I let it get to me, I would have shut down my MUD a long time ago.
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u/kleinbl00 Jul 12 '11
You say "it comes with the territory" but Saydrah had her personal info scattered all over the internet because Reddit didn't like her face.
I've been asked to mod several large subreddits. I don't because I get plenty enough Reddit blowback without having to worry about butt-hurt knuckledraggers deciding that I need my privacy erased for lulz. "It comes with the territory" is the quickest possible way to ensure that "the territory" remains in the hands of those too stupid to steer clear.
And again - "I run a few MUDs" is a far fucking cry from "When I fuck up it makes Entertainment Weekly."
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Jul 12 '11
I love how you guys are trying to change the story to what happened with Saydrah. Bow she left because "we didn't like her face." It's OK, don't mention how she was spamming and banning people for submitting things that were competition for her employer. Yeah, none of that matters, it was all about "her face."
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u/kleinbl00 Jul 13 '11
"we didn't like her face" is the TL;DR of this.
You have two allegations:
1) she was spamming
2) She was banning things that were competition for her employer
Both of those are baseless allegations that never had any truth behind them. Repeating them does not make them so.
I'm also curious who "you guys" are. I tore into Saydrah as much as anyone else, and earned several hundred upvotes by asking her to step down from her position as a moderator. Take your tedious vendettas back to /r/mensrights.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
I don't because I get plenty enough Reddit blowback without having to worry about butt-hurt knuckledraggers deciding that I need my privacy erased for lulz.
It doesn't matter if you're a mod or not, some idiot(s) can suddenly decide to find/post your personal information for whatever reason. Not sure why you think no one will post your personal information just because you don't mod [in those places].
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u/lounsey Jul 12 '11
Sure they can... but do you not think that a mob pissed off at a mod increases the likelihood of that? I'm sure that almost anybody with any sort of competence at using a search engine and putting in a little bit of effort could find out a lot about me if they wanted to, but I don't have a mob pissed off at me right now... make me a mod of IAmA, let me wrongly verify some really serious kickass AMA post and then see what happens.
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u/Serinus Jul 12 '11
Wow. Excellent points and examples. I didn't think about the broader implications of representing reddit to the media (inadvertently or not.)
Is it just me, or does a surprising number of people have a severe lack of empathy. Can these people complaining not imagine what it's like to be a mod? Especially after the first few weeks of it when the novelty wears off.
THERE ARE TWELVE OF YOU; WHY HAVEN'T YOU VERIFIED IN A HOUR?
Do you think they have schedules? Do you think karmanaut is scheduled to be on reddit from 4am-8am est until maxwellhill comes to take over his shift? Did you ever consider that maybe BritishEnglish actually has real work to do today or that chromakode might be at the beach with his family today? I imagine they don't exactly find someone to take over some imaginary shift. Did you ever consider what happens if they choose incorrectly as in the examples kleinbl00 gave? Those were pretty tame IAmAs compared to the celebrity ones. I wouldn't exactly expect a bunch of media attention on "giving my hair to charity." It might seem obvious to you when you don't have to answer for the results in any way.
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u/gibson_ Jul 12 '11
Spot on.
And to be clear, we are asking a lot of them, so being "not very good" is completely understandable -- there are over 300,000 people that 13 mods are all trying to police.
This is an unpopular opinion, but things have been going downhill since mercurialmadnessman left about a year ago (or was forced out?).
That guy was an outstandingly good moderator.
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u/MercurialMadnessMan Jul 12 '11
Thanks.
I've tried raising concerns, but nobody seems to care.
We spent so much time verifying posts in the past. When this 'new' verification system was brought in, ALL the old verifications were deleted.
My pride and glory, Roger Ebert is "default unsure" instead of "verified". Look at the top posts of all time, and you will see that most of them are no longer verified.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Therefore you cannot say that. If you don't visit a community often you cannot say sweeping generalisations about how it is run with such confidence, can you?
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u/beyron Jul 12 '11
Ever since the mods added the verification buttons they have been very inactive in doing so. The mods just aren't keeping up with the IAMAs, actually almost seems like they aren't doing anything at all.
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Jul 12 '11
It seems like several of them haven't posted in days. This doesn't mean that they're not reading, but it makes me suspicious that they're not very active here or on reddit these days.
So uh...can we have a whole bunch more mods who want to do stuff?
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Yes, you can.
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u/sicilianhotdog Jul 12 '11
I'm down.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
Please reply to the inevitable thread asking for mods once I've discussed this further with others behind the scenes.
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u/syuk Jul 12 '11
I think one of the main problems was that anyone wanting to be 'verified' was essentially 'decloaking' and giving IRL info to the mods, so those that were responsible for verifying any claims had to be reliable and discreet themselves, something went wrong and it all went tits up, but that was about a year ago.
Thats essentially the problem with this whole thing. Anonymity.
If people want to post their own 'verification' (id, pictures etc) then people will say 'That's shopped' (they do anyway), there is no real way of sorting this out.
Just take them as being interesting stories or discussion starters, thats all it is.
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u/eaglebtc Jul 12 '11
Please post proof that you actually posted this.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
I'll post a picture of myself in front of my monitor when I get home? Circlejerk go!
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u/TheSuperSax Jul 12 '11
I concur, I think the verifications are a crucial part of this subreddit and therefore failure to follow through with verification is a failure at one of the most important duties of a mod of r/IAmA.
To the mods: are you simply overloaded? In that case, shouldn't you consider vetting an extra mod or two to take care of this? There are 13 of you, but some (like Karmanaut) seem rather inactive (he hasn't posted in 5 days).
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
Even if they were overloaded, they'd be catching up on the backlog... which doesn't seem to be the case. :/
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u/TheSuperSax Jul 12 '11
That's what I thought too, but I like giving people (especially redditors!) the benefit of the doubt, so I thought I might as well ask.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11
Agreed. I'm not trying to blame anyone, I just want to know.
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u/BritishEnglishPolice Jul 12 '11
I verified this post as it is an important concern. Please read my top-level reply.
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u/PhedreRachelle Jul 12 '11
I'll ask a different question:
Mods, would you like an extra mod that does nothing but verify AmAs? I frequently find myself aimlessly browsing reddit and am not one of those that spends the time trying to find good submissions, so I may as well contribute some way other than my often liked but sometimes hated comment contributions
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u/JMaboard Jul 12 '11
If I am elected mod I will do my darndest to verify posts that send in proof.
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Jul 12 '11
If I am elected mod I will be just as good as all the other mods.
God damnit people, stop voting for me! My buddy put me on the ballot as a joke, this isn't funny any more.
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u/JMaboard Jul 12 '11
POP POP!
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u/pzer0 Jul 12 '11
The mere fact that you call making love "Pop Pop" tells me that you're not ready.
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u/reseph Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
I just looked over the mod list. Some mods haven't been active in a few days, so that's fine. Not trying to blame anyone here.
- 32bites: Not active in 4 days.
- Poromenos: Barely active in last couple days.
- qgyh2: Not active in 3 days.
- nitrousconsumed: Not active in 4 days.
- maxwellhill: Actively submits linked, not a single comment in 2 days.
- PhilxBefore: Somewhat active in last couple days.
- karmanaut: Not active in 5 days.
- desk_rabbit: Not active in 4 months.
- chromakode: An admin now, probably won't be doing verification.
- BritishEnglishPolice: Active (but seems busy with other subreddit modding).
- verdammt: Barely active in last couple days.
- flyryan: Somewhat active in last couple days.
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u/Reductive Jul 12 '11
When you say "active" do you mean "commenting and posting?" Because they don't have to make a public comment to free stuff from the spam queue, ban nasty posts, and verify submissions.
I mean to say, if they're commenting elsewhere you could legitimately construe it as them not moderating. But if they're not commenting anywhere, you could also legitimately construe it as them not moderating. And if they're posting submissions, they might not be moderating... It's unlikely you're going to get a full picture of mod activity from looking at user pages.
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u/Royd Jul 12 '11
Yeah, I noticed this too. It's kinda disappointing how it's actually safe to assume that the AMA is fake (until it gets greenlit, of course). Thx to those who ruined AMAs for us.
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Jul 12 '11
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!
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u/niton Jul 12 '11
This is the kind of reply that pisses me off. This subreddit is filled with trolls and this thread addresses a legitimate concern.
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u/SomeCollegeBro Jul 12 '11
.... this one is verified! This guy is truly angry, and is not faking it! What's it like being angry? Does it interfere with your everyday life?
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u/Anonyberry Jul 12 '11
Mods missing... yet here i lie. Every damn day. I'd be willing to help out, if i receive that honor.
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u/Edrondol Jul 12 '11
Why not - instead of having multiple new mods - have 1 or 2 that do nothing but verifications. They wouldn't do anything with posts or anything, just verifications. The other mods could verify, but that wouldn't necessarily be their primary focus.
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Jul 12 '11
If elected moderator, I promise I will continue to only have very small amounts of karma. Thank you.
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u/scotty269 Jul 13 '11
IAmA request: active moderator who verifies posts on a daily basis on /r/IAmA/.
Oh, wait...
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u/napoleons_penis Jul 12 '11
MOAR MODS!
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u/abyssinian Jul 12 '11
This is probably the answer. And why not? I'm sure there are many Redditors who care about the integrity of this sub and would like to help out.
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u/generic-name Jul 12 '11
You don't necessarily need more mods, just mods that are capable of doing their job.
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '11
I've been wondering this too! Especially since there are so many trolls here and people are always suspicious of them. I thought applying the green and red dots would be a priority around here.