For example, you ask voluntary users to tick a check box stating they are volunteer for modding, and then every now a lottery happens and they can get selected to mod a sub for say a week. Similarly, some volunteers could get selected for a counter modding function, they could reinstate removed content, or give bad moderators blames which could lower the probability of being selected for moderation... Shares the burden + is representative + prevents lockouts... I invent nothing, Athens was governed this way for a century. What do you think?
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The_Oracle ago
This is interesting, after the transparency discussion I was trying to think of a way to elect new moderators, someone who really wants to be one seems like the last person who should be if you see what I mean, those who crave power are usually the people who are most likely to abuse it once they have it, so a random selection of moderators seems like it could be a good idea.
However I'm going to play devil's advocate and state a few drawbacks to this method, the first being the one Lysergia pointed out, that it seems like it would be a nightmare to code, although I have no experience of this myself. Secondly if someone was selected who had neither the time nor the inclination to actually carry out their responsibilities, or a crisis of some kind arose that was beyond their abilities as a first time moderator, that would present a problem for the wellbeing of this sub. Your suggestion of opting into the lottery would solve some of this but not all I fear, for example if you opted in to be considered but were selected on the week of a university deadline, or an unforeseen real life emergency that takes up your time. If the way around this was to transfer your duties to someone else for that week that would seem to undermine the randomness of the selection process. My final thought is that a counter modding function is a little pointless to give to only a few people, I think all users should have the ability to question moderator decisions and use OWNtheNWO's idea of some sort of up voting system to reinstate deleted material or even remove a moderator if there were serious violations, obviously with some caveats about the users that can vote on these things such as a certain number of posts or a length of time subscribed so that the system cannot easily be gamed.
Those are my thoughts for now anyway, as someone with no practical knowledge of coding I have no clue how easy or hard it would be to implement your ideas or any others that are being suggested, I do think total moderator transparency is a very good starting point for now but it would be interesting to implement some democratic voting systems, especially ones first used by the fathers of democracy.
a9sdd8nas90 ago
I absolutely do, it's the essence of sortition, prevent the most eager to get an edge from their eagerness.
Nothing the people behind voat can't handle, there is no hurry though, and indeed moderation logs and current moderation teams can do a fantastic job for a long while before anything more involved is required, i'm sure there is more urgent.
That's what the blames and countermodding would be for, of course a refusal would induce a new random draw (perhaps they would give credentials to a friend but that's not the ideological and political lobbying level we are concerned with anyway), also there is no pressure to only have one moderator per sub, if one turns out inactive the blow is quite minor, and it only lasts so long, and perhaps counter moderation could be entrusted to verify activity if it ever becomes a problem. Definitely no passing the poke though, i agree it completely breaks the purpose and opens the door to corruption, redraw or leave the rest of the moderation team as is are the only options.
All users are allowed to check in for moderation, i never meant a select few, the counter mods would be drawn from the same pool of volunteers, once you get drawn to moderate a sub, another once to moderate moderators, and instead of scrutinizing user content, you scrutinize moderator behaviors. It's almost a feedback loop, it reinforces in moderators the behaviors they would expect from moderators.
The_Oracle ago
All salient points, thanks for replying so extensively and I'm completely with you on this idea, the only thing I would still question is the counter modding, even if they are drawn randomly and have the task of moderating the moderators I think this could be done by all users all the time, I'm not sure specific counter moderators would be needed at all if all subscribers had the ability to see changes made or posts deleted, if there was total transparency a system could be put in place to vote on these changes by established users and keep the moderators in line.
a9sdd8nas90 ago
ah i see what you mean, literally open up the role to all users, depending on what their actual function and power(s) are, it can certainly be a reasonable line of thought