I can't stand by and watch stuff like this happen around here. I will not support subverses (by featuring them or making them defaults) with moderators who impose questionable rules such as "your post has to end with a questionmark". Moderators need to calm their tits and focus on nurturing and growing their communities. Rules can always be bent and what better time to bend the rules then now, while Voat is still growing and under development?
I am thankful for moderators who help keep Voat spam-free and I respect your work. I really do. I started working on automoderator for comments and submissions and your job will be made much easier when this is implemented, but for the time being, moderators need to relax and focus on removing spam and eventual illegal content. If I submit a new post and it gains some traction (hundreds of comments, views and upvoats), and my post gets removed because I broke a rule by forgetting to include a question mark in my submission title... well, I would be pissed. People take removal of their comments and submissions very seriously and moderators must think twice before removing stuff if they want to avoid offending users. Voat has a ranking process where time acts as gravity and older posts will eventually fall off the frontpage. Voat also has automatic public moderation logs and everything you remove will still be visible in these modlogs and your actions may be questioned by the community, just like what happened yesterday.
This action can be reverted if /askvoat mods can convince us that the issue has been dealt with or if some other, less restrictive community takes over.
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SpaceRosa ago
So you support moderators who bend the rules when it suits them?
Granted, it was a stupid rule, but could the two active moderators change it without consulting the majority who weren't? I was under the impression moderators were supposed to enforce rules as long as they remain, not just whenever they feel like it.
Atko ago
It's all about being respectful and welcoming to users - the core of every online community. It takes time to write and submit a post. If it gets removed hours later after significant number of people (for Voat userbase) engaged with the post because you missed a questionmark, that can only mean one thing and one thing only: you are not respected as a user and as a person and everyone else who commented or engaged with that submission is not respected either. Bending the rule in this case, however, goes a long way: if a moderator stepped in and commented saying "this post is breaking our rule X, but since you guys are enjoying talking here, we will leave it up, please pay attention to the rule next time" instead of removing the post - holy shit, now that's respect and it goes a long way. If you respect the users, I strongly believe that they will respect you back.
HomerSimpson ago
Or you know? It is a pain in the ass to moderate ?
No. That is retarded. A rule should be enforced no matter the time or how many people have commented. A rule is there for a reason. And you even saying this is retarded.
Yeah. Let's just remove all rules and let all users post anything wherever they want right? just because it gets tons of comments means it is ok right? Sounds good to me!
Stoic ago
I moderate /v/AskVoat and not only do I agree word for word, I applied this word for word:
https://voat.co/v/AskVoat/comments/284043//1012594#1012594
exolyte ago
As a moderator it's sometimes hard to make the call to decide what stays up and what doesn't. If you leave a very big thread up and take down a slightly smaller thread, people will complain about favoritism. If you leave that slightly smaller thread up and take down a thread smaller than that, people will still complain about favoritism. In the end, nobody will respect the rule and you might as well remove the rule, which is rarely beneficial to the quality of the content on the sub.
Like someone else said, mods temporarily removing posts and giving users the ability to correct their posts seems like a good solution.
tpdplsio ago
While I agree that it's silly to remove posts like that, there's also huge potential for drama if mods bend rules unequally based on bias or popularity. Maybe there could be a system for "correcting" threads that were deleted based simply on technicalities (like, for instance, omitting a question mark)? Like a mod deletes the thread with a reason, the thread starter has the option to fix the problem, mod approves thread and thread is restored?
RedditCEOEllenPao ago
I don't think it's too much to ask of moderators to gently remind a user of the rules when they break them, and then only start taking corrective actions when a pattern of behavior is noticed - say for example, a user is warned that they must phrase their title in the form of a question 3 times, the 4th time they would have their thread deleted, because they can no longer simply claim ignorance.
tpdplsio ago
Yeah but that sounds like a lot of work for mods to keep track of how many warnings someone has had.
leixiaotie ago
So, looks like "Don't remove a post that is breaking the rule, after x upvotes or comments are reached" is like unwritten mod rules right now. I'll be glad if those basic mod guidance can be defined.
SpaceRosa ago
I find that too black and white. Isn't it assigning thoughts and feelings against the community that the mod might not have had? Just because they delete a post, doesn't mean they don't respect people, necessarily.
Besides, have you seen the users? Half of that witch hunt had nothing to do with moderation. It was because She's too liberal, and they were stitching her up as an SJW, the boogeyman. It's a reason why I don't agree with the idea of having elections for mods. It would either become a popularity contest, or undoubtedly it would make it unreasonable difficult for people who may be the best for the job, but whose opinions or values don't align with the most popular ideology of the community. They could be someone who, if given the job, would absolutely nail it, but they'd never get in because they're "too SJW".
How could such a system be implemented and not have that kind of vulnerability?