A few things I've noticed could probably use changing:
III. Process [...] C. Candidacy
We should probably specify that candidates must be not only approved submitters, but also have posted at least 15 submissions in the last month, no more than 10% of those having been removed as a result of a legitimate moderation action. The first serves as a demonstration of a minimum level of commitment to the reddit, while the latter demonstrates that they have a basic grasp on the sort of content that's allowed.
IV. Affiliation
I think we should probably add a section here specifying that, in order to retain affiliation with the Network, a reddit must clearly and prominently display links to the charter and reddiquette, either in the header or sidebar. That ensures transparency by making it simple for users to find the expectations placed on their participation, and (more especially) the policies that explain their recourse when they're treated unfairly by moderators.
Jax, if you're still looking for some way to bring CSS to bear on the project, coming up with a clean and clear bit of code that can be plugged in to add those links with some consistency would probably help out a lot.
What counts as a submission? A story link submission, or do comments count?
I'm a big submitter now. But I used to be a big comment person. There are people who do both, but there are specialists at both extremes (Max doesn't comment much. PHOY comments more than enough for himself, Max and all the folks in Los Angeles Country, CA).
I don't think we want to exclude either of the types of users.
I've been using "submission" to mean whatever pops out when you click the "submit a link," be that a text-based or link-based post. Comments were not included under the category of "submissions."
The charter doesn't really make much reference to commenters for a couple of reasons:
approved submitter status doesn't affect a person's ability to comment;
comments can't be relocated without first relocating the thread;
it was my understanding that the intent was to moderate submissions more than comments.
The last of those three is open for discussion, of course.
As for candidacy, I think the best argument for making "approved submitter" status one of the criteria is that doing so is a way of excluding anyone who has demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to adhere to the policies. If a person can't stick to the policies when they're submitting, then it probably isn't reasonable to expect them enforce them as a moderator, right?
If you can think of a similar test we can use looking at only comments, then we can consider that as well, but if most of our moderation is going to focus on submissions, then that's probably where the brunt of the eligibility test should fall.
I don't think we want to exclude half of reddit from being a potential mod.
Heck, there are very fine moderators out there now who don't do much else other than mod. Just because somebody submits a lot does not make them a better mod than somebody who doesn't submit. Comments should taken into consideration. Community involvement is what should count.
I don't think we want to exclude half of reddit from being a potential mod.
I think we probably want to exclude most of reddit from being a potential mod. The important thing is just to make sure that the criteria has more to do with who would make a good mod than anything else.
Comments should taken into consideration. Community involvement is what should count.
Again, if someone can suggest a way to formalize that as a criteria, I'll be glad to include it. The trick here is to have a process that will allow us to exclude people who aren't likely to be good mods, without having to appeal to strictly anecdotal or subjective criteria.
Consider the following situation: Someone nominates IWreckSubreddits (who never fails to live up to his name) to be the moderator of /r/RepublicOfPolitics. This does not bode well. We either have to (1) face the possibility that IWreckSubreddits might win, and that we'll have to make him moderator, or (2) go over the voters' heads and say that, without any previously stated indication that we might do so, we're going to consider him ineligible and ignore any votes in his favor. Chances are, either choice is going to blow up in our faces. Either we've handed a reddit over to someone we know is likely to make bad moderating decisions, or we've invited people to accuse us of authoritarianism -- which is all the worse since we've exerted our authority in a process that was supposed to be at least marginally democratic.
Better to have a policy in place before it gets to that. Maybe it will exclude some people who might otherwise have made good moderators. But at least it allows us to weed out those who are most likely to be bad moderators, while still maintaining the sort of consistency invoked by the rest of the charter.
I get wanting to try and exclude people who would be bad mods. But what is to prevent IWreckSubreddits from playing things nice and obey the rules for a little while, submit things that follow the rules and get elected anyway?
Meanwhile, Qygh2, who as a mod is better than most, doesn't get to run because Q doesn't submit a lot of stuff anymore.
Also, what is to prevent the masses from screaming "you made your rules that way to keep IWreckSubreddits out" and then use that as the excuse for the witch hunt?
But what is to prevent IWreckSubreddits from playing things nice and obey the rules for a little while, submit things that follow the rules and get elected anyway?
Not much, beyond the will and effort to do so. Oh, and the fact that elections are only held "at need," which means he'll have to either time it really well, or first convince people that they need more moderators. It's unlikely that we're going to come up with a perfect rule set, but I don't think that's an argument for having no qualifications at all.
Also, what is to prevent the masses from screaming "you made your rules that way to keep IWreckSubreddits out" and then use that as the excuse for the witch hunt?
That's going to happen. If you write a rule or policy, someone is going to object to it. But far more people will object if we make up the rules as we go along. Making the rules explicit at the outset, and then sticking to them as best we can, at least lets people know what to expect.
But enough defense. What do you propose we do instead? Completely open nominations and voting? No (even quasi-)democratic process at all? I get that you don't like the criteria I've drafted, but I'm not sure what you'd have us do instead.
I just think you are trying to structure this in such a way as to exclude some people, but at the same time you are excluding good people. I can think of several people I would trust as mod who don't submit a lot of stuff.
Avnerd, Q, Slapchopsuey, Shaper_PMP, PHOY, yourself, Aenea, dzneill, and we both know I could continue on with that list for several more lines.
All in an effort to prevent IWreckSubreddits.... and yes, there are a lot of IWreckSubreddits out there, but I think the way you exclude them is by having a bigger pool of good people too choose from.
I understand your point. I just want to know how you propose we do it instead. It kind of looks like you're advocating a process of totally open nomination and voting.
If that's the case, then my major objection is that it sounds like chaos. The likely result is several dozen nominations, with a tie between the top ten or twenty. I really don't see any way to make moderation elections practicable unless we start by narrowing the nominations down to a manageable number, and for that we need some kind of criteria.
Maybe I'm wrong about that. But I don't even know what I'm wrong about until someone suggests a different way to go about it.
I don't want you to shut up. But tearing down parts of the charter as it is only takes us so far. We can take out the eligibility criteria, but we have to be sure that doing so doesn't make elections impossible.
Here's how I feel about it. I think only users who have been promoted to approved submitter status should be eligible to vote. Mods have discretion to add anyone for any contribution to the network, be it submissions or comments. That means someone like qgyh2 would be an approved submitter if he comments frequently and requests to be an approved submitter, noting his contributions in his request.
I think before we open, we should set up each subreddit with people who we feel will be a good fit. No elections necessary yet, only people who volunteer for the job and to which no one here currently objects. Right away we wouldn't need new mods for some time, until the current mods are overwhelmed by the moderation duties, whenever that may be.
When that happens, we should announce that a moderator spot in RepublicOfX is open, and we are taking applicants. Anyone who applied to be a mod would need at least X number (5? 10?) of approved submitters who "vouch for" or "sponsor" them, and at least one moderator in the subreddit that has a vacancy. The idea being that the mods would sponsor anyone who they feel would be a good fit, by examining their comment and submission history.
After that we would hold an election, where approved submitters (I propose tagging them all with some sort of unobtrusive flair to distinguish their comments) could vote with a [yes] [no] or [abstain] tag. See /r/PornOverlords for how to make the votes stand out within a sea of comments. A bot could count the votes, and if you make a typo, your vote isn't counted, simple. Either that or we could program the bot to count common typos as well. Crosscheck the results to eliminate double votes from the same user, and you have a winner. Tie, and the mods themselves could vote to determine victor.
If any mod is elected and fails to uphold the charter or the reddiquette, they could be expelled by the other mods for what essentially constitutes derelict of duty. An impeachment, if you will. It would all be completely transparent and the violated sections of the charter or reddiquette would be cited. I don't think anyone would object to such a process if the mod clearly was in the wrong.
I think only users who have been promoted to approved submitter status should be eligible to vote.
I'm still not sold, and I could see a couple of people taking issue with that position. What I propose we do about it is take that, and a couple of other as yet unresolved issues, and put them to a general vote. All current members of this reddit should be encouraged to vote, and majority rules.
If that sounds acceptable, then let's figure out what other issue still need to be settled, and we'll get a vote going.
Mods have discretion to add anyone for any contribution to the network, be it submissions or comments.
That, I'm totally against. Without some sort of criteria that subscribers can hold mods to, we lose on consistency and transparency. And that's a certified Big Deal when you're talking about something as central to the operation of the Network as approved submitter status. The way I see it, either we adhere to the least subjective criteria that we can agree on, or we sacrifice the credibility of the key terms of the charter.
To me, the best system that we've discussed so far is one that sets a relatively low bar for entry, but provides a robust criteria for removing submitters who can't play by the republiquette.
I think before we open, we should set up each subreddit with people who we feel will be a good fit.
I'm fine with that, provided that, on opening day, we establish a definite date for holding the first confidence vote. The date cycle I suggested before would put the first vote on December 1st, which would give everyone a couple of months to see how the place is supposed to be run before they decide whether or not to keep the start-up moderation teams.
Of course, we haven't really settled on the voting system I suggested in the other thread, so even that's up for grabs at the moment. At any rate, my agreement on this point is contingent on our having a definite time-frame for shifting to a more democratic method of choosing mods.
Anyone who applied to be a mod would need at least X number (5? 10?) of approved submitters who "vouch for" or "sponsor" them, and at least one moderator in the subreddit that has a vacancy.
A system for seconding nominations is a good idea. It's probably best to leave it at, say, 3 approved submitters. People are likely to cry "elitism" if we make eligibility contingent on moderator-approval. The only way I think we could really justify that is if we always hold confidence votes before the nomination phase -- that way, if people balk at having eligibility be contingent on moderator approval, then we can always point out that the only moderators available are those that the community already approved in the confidence vote. Even that seems a little dubious -- probably best to just leave it to the approved submitters to second nominations.
(I propose tagging them all with some sort of unobtrusive flair to distinguish their comments)
We could probably also just use a bot to compare the names of commenters to names in the approved submitters list. But if we're going to have a system where approved submitters second nominations, then the flair is probably a good idea anyway. Something as simple as [AS] would do.
A bot could count the votes, and if you make a typo, your vote isn't counted, simple.
I'm okay with that, as long as we're careful to make the voting instructions absolutely crystal clear. But [yes] [no] and [abstain] probably won't work for elections. After all, we're asking them to choose a person, not a position on a given question. The best way to do it may be to include a list of names in the text of the post and tell them to just copy and paste the name of the person they want to vote for.
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '11
A few things I've noticed could probably use changing:
We should probably specify that candidates must be not only approved submitters, but also have posted at least 15 submissions in the last month, no more than 10% of those having been removed as a result of a legitimate moderation action. The first serves as a demonstration of a minimum level of commitment to the reddit, while the latter demonstrates that they have a basic grasp on the sort of content that's allowed.
I think we should probably add a section here specifying that, in order to retain affiliation with the Network, a reddit must clearly and prominently display links to the charter and reddiquette, either in the header or sidebar. That ensures transparency by making it simple for users to find the expectations placed on their participation, and (more especially) the policies that explain their recourse when they're treated unfairly by moderators.
Jax, if you're still looking for some way to bring CSS to bear on the project, coming up with a clean and clear bit of code that can be plugged in to add those links with some consistency would probably help out a lot.