Raziaar
I Hate Custom Titles
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2003
- Messages
- 29,769
- Reaction score
- 140
Hey guys.
I've been thinking how pretty much all forums out there follow the traditional owner/admin/moderator style of forum moderation. I know that I and many others feel this way of operation can have some serious flaws and be potentially detrimental to a forum. Sometimes administrators or moderators develop the notion in their head that their position was granted to them so they could have power, and be free to exercise that power upon others how they see fit. This leads them to operate in a relative dictatorship like fashion, which is very bad. It is my belief that moderators are not given their powers to exercise them in that way, but instead they are to serve the mebers of the forum in keeping the forum cleaned of spam and an enjoyable place to post. They also have a duty to the site owner by making sure the content of the forum follows his/her view of how things should be. And generally, most moderators do exactly this. They are humble and realize their job is to serve the rest of the forum members, and use their position of power with dignity and respect. That's what I think anyways. And of course there's also the problem where there simply aren't enough moderators, or a forum may go an extended period of time where there are no moderators online to deal with a situation, which has happened several times on these forums.
But I think it would be an interesting exercise to develop a forum, or to modify an existing forum, to adopt a more democratized way of operation that involves the bulk of the users in the job of moderation. If you have a new forum, the owner would assign a small group of moderators to keep the forum clean as things develop and the community grows and becomes established. But as forums become established, people start getting a good feeling for others and they learn to respect them and know they are a regular fixture to the forum. In my idea, once this sophistication of the community is developed to this point, the power will gradually be shifted from the placeholder moderators to these well known and frequently present members of the community. Of course you can apply this to an existing forum by modifying it as these elements already exist.
As individuals, the members bestowed these powers would be incapable of doing anything. It is as a collective group they have the power to make significant changes. If somebody registers to the forum and starts spamming threads or being entirely inconsistent with how people should operate themselves while participating in the forum, these individuals can band together and use their power against the individual by voting to ban them. If there's enough people willing to do this as set by the site owner, the individual will be banned. This organized action will be logged and allowed review by a panel of moderators(yes, there will still be a small group of very trusted moderators for this purpose), who will determine a case by case basis if a particular decision was just. They have the ability to enforce or reverse the effects of the vote, making sure that if any small group of voting level members bands together to do some unlawful things, the effects won't likely be present for long. Those members may then be stripped of their voting capabilities by the site owner or the panel of moderators for their unscrupulous behavior.
I personally think this would be a fantastic exercise. Voting members would have the power to ban, lock threads, unlock threads, prevent a particular user from posting for a set period of time, and various other things that in a conventional system the moderators, admin, and owner would handle. This would still allow the owner ultimate dictatorship over his site, but it would transfer the power from the admins and moderators to the people. There would still be a panel of moderators appointed by the site owner, with the powers of other voting members, but their only 'superior' power would be to enforce or overturn votes performed by the general base of members. This would remove the feelings of there being moderator cliques and oppressive dictatorship capabilities, and also allow all members who invest themselves in the forums to participate in regulating it with their ability to have voting power if they don't abuse it.
What do you think?
I've been thinking how pretty much all forums out there follow the traditional owner/admin/moderator style of forum moderation. I know that I and many others feel this way of operation can have some serious flaws and be potentially detrimental to a forum. Sometimes administrators or moderators develop the notion in their head that their position was granted to them so they could have power, and be free to exercise that power upon others how they see fit. This leads them to operate in a relative dictatorship like fashion, which is very bad. It is my belief that moderators are not given their powers to exercise them in that way, but instead they are to serve the mebers of the forum in keeping the forum cleaned of spam and an enjoyable place to post. They also have a duty to the site owner by making sure the content of the forum follows his/her view of how things should be. And generally, most moderators do exactly this. They are humble and realize their job is to serve the rest of the forum members, and use their position of power with dignity and respect. That's what I think anyways. And of course there's also the problem where there simply aren't enough moderators, or a forum may go an extended period of time where there are no moderators online to deal with a situation, which has happened several times on these forums.
But I think it would be an interesting exercise to develop a forum, or to modify an existing forum, to adopt a more democratized way of operation that involves the bulk of the users in the job of moderation. If you have a new forum, the owner would assign a small group of moderators to keep the forum clean as things develop and the community grows and becomes established. But as forums become established, people start getting a good feeling for others and they learn to respect them and know they are a regular fixture to the forum. In my idea, once this sophistication of the community is developed to this point, the power will gradually be shifted from the placeholder moderators to these well known and frequently present members of the community. Of course you can apply this to an existing forum by modifying it as these elements already exist.
As individuals, the members bestowed these powers would be incapable of doing anything. It is as a collective group they have the power to make significant changes. If somebody registers to the forum and starts spamming threads or being entirely inconsistent with how people should operate themselves while participating in the forum, these individuals can band together and use their power against the individual by voting to ban them. If there's enough people willing to do this as set by the site owner, the individual will be banned. This organized action will be logged and allowed review by a panel of moderators(yes, there will still be a small group of very trusted moderators for this purpose), who will determine a case by case basis if a particular decision was just. They have the ability to enforce or reverse the effects of the vote, making sure that if any small group of voting level members bands together to do some unlawful things, the effects won't likely be present for long. Those members may then be stripped of their voting capabilities by the site owner or the panel of moderators for their unscrupulous behavior.
I personally think this would be a fantastic exercise. Voting members would have the power to ban, lock threads, unlock threads, prevent a particular user from posting for a set period of time, and various other things that in a conventional system the moderators, admin, and owner would handle. This would still allow the owner ultimate dictatorship over his site, but it would transfer the power from the admins and moderators to the people. There would still be a panel of moderators appointed by the site owner, with the powers of other voting members, but their only 'superior' power would be to enforce or overturn votes performed by the general base of members. This would remove the feelings of there being moderator cliques and oppressive dictatorship capabilities, and also allow all members who invest themselves in the forums to participate in regulating it with their ability to have voting power if they don't abuse it.
What do you think?
