Who wants to be a moderator?

@orenwolf, please post your score so we can compare ourselves against the gold standard. :wink:

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Having tried this, its amazing what a high score you can get with my strategy of “Be vaguely reasonable, while strongly encouraging all forms of copying and piracy”.

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First comment there is modded. Meta, huh?

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Could someone create a Venn diagram of the ideal moderator?

Oh mercy! I used ChatGPT4 for the first time just now and it’s shook me up. Behold go take a shower!

Summarizing Request and Response.

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Hello

ChatGPT

Hello! How can I assist you today?

!(data:image/svg+xml,%3csvg%20xmlns=%27http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%27%20version=%271.1%27%20width=%2738%27%20height=%2738%27/%3e)

I have an idea but I could use some help figuring out how to make it work. It has to do with a Venn diagram it should be funny it should be insightful and it should focus on the notion of what makes an ideal moderator" for a favorite website (URL:boingboing.net)

ChatGPT

Sure, I’d be happy to help you with your idea! It sounds like you want to create a Venn diagram that is both funny and insightful, focusing on the qualities that make an ideal moderator for a favorite website, specifically boingboing.net. Here’s a concise approach to get you started:

Title: “The Ideal Boing Boing Moderator: A Venn Diagram”

  • Central Circle: Boing Boing Logo
  • Left Circle: “Tech Wizard”
    • Traits: Geeky, knowledgeable about emerging tech trends, quick to troubleshoot website issues
  • Right Circle: “Creative Curator”
    • Traits: Artistic, ability to spot unique and interesting content, skilled at creating captivating headlines
  • Bottom Circle: “Community Guardian”
    • Traits: Patient, diplomatic, adept at resolving conflicts, promotes positive engagement

Overlap Combinations:

  1. “Tech Wizard” + “Creative Curator”: “The Innovator”
  • Traits: Pioneers new ways of presenting content, experiments with multimedia formats, enhances user experience
  1. “Tech Wizard” + “Community Guardian”: “The Problem Solver”
  • Traits: Ensures smooth website functionality, responds promptly to user queries, addresses technical issues promptly
  1. “Creative Curator” + “Community Guardian”: “The Cultivator”
  • Traits: Fosters a vibrant community, encourages user-generated content, promotes respectful and inclusive discussions

Caption: “The Ideal Boing Boing Moderator: Where Tech, Creativity, and Community Thrive!”

Hmmm

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… can you get ChatGPT to present all that to us in the form of a PowerPoint :thinking:

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Or compatible with a SNES emulator software environment?

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I discussed this problem in an earlier topic - the bigger you get, the more regimented your decisions have to be. What works for some large platforms pisses off most people most of the time. Your small hobby site probably has moderation decisions that most people agree with most of the time. At BB’s size, you get to piss off some of the people some of the time - I guarantee there are people who already feel our moderation is inconsistent or incorrect, even though it’s just a few people actively trying to be consistent as much as possible!

The bigger you get, the more people you have to piss off because your pool of visitors widens, their beliefs widen, and so on. And worse, the more your moderation policies differ from “the big sites”, the harder it is to get new members because they arrive believing “online discourse” has a certain set of rules or a certain amount of leniency, instead find that we are stricter than that, and leave. So now, to keep the community open, you have to additionally decide on giving new members “the benefit of the doubt” and the right to make mistakes over protecting the existing community from those same mistakes or the possibility that the new user is in fact, here to cause trouble.

When I was working at Wikimedia, this was all the management talked about - how do you make Wikipedia not “the place where White guys edit Western topics,” when almost all the initiatives initially make the editing experience worse by bringing in inexperienced editors or create topics they know nothing about, and your existing community, used to things being a certain way, and who are also volunteers (just like commenters here), leave or stop contributing? They haven’t solved the problem. There’s no way we will, let alone a vastly larger site like Twitter or even Mastodon as it grows.

Moderation sucks. I figure I’m in the “keep some of the people happy some of the time” phase. If the BBS grows, that very growth will piss off more of the people more of the time, which means moderation will piss off more of the people more of the time, which will probably create a feedback loop where we don’t grow. And I think that’s the last ten years of the BBS in a nutshell - As online discourse shifts (take, oh, 2016 as a major point, or this year for example), moderation has to shift, we will piss off some people more than others. They will leave, others will come, and we mainly maintain a steady state. And no matter how much us mods try to be fair and consistent we will piss off someone who believes we are doing neither.

Moderation really sucks. I do it because I love this place and I love the mutants here. But as a job, as this test tries to envision? Fuck That.

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From what I can see, you’re doing quite a bit better than that.

I posted the link to the game because I thought it was a joke, not a serious way of testing anything at all.

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I know, and I took it as such :slight_smile: But there aren’t many topics where moderation is on-topic, so apologies if my venting cast your link in the wrong tone.

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Well said oh beloved happy Mutant

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Oh thank goodness. I was afraid I had started a topic that was in itself off-topic, and I don’t think there’s a badge for that. Absolutely no apology required. That’s a great explanation of the mod’s dilemma— I hope you have saved it to repost as necessary.

Aw. It’s mutual, trust me.

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