Free Expression and Moderation Reform

you don't remove the human factor... somehow you're implying that becoming a linden employee will magicallly make a person a better moderator.

i think someone can be a good moderator without them being a linden employee.

if the concern is that resident moderators will be unfair, then being a linden employee just means being unfair in clever and undetectable ways. a linden employee has more power to abuse (i.e. hide their tracks).

Every thread seems to eventually degenerate into personal attacks and the defense of personal attacks. Many of the defenses of personal attacks seem to be in the mind of the defender I must say since no one else seems to see them.

I'm not removing the human factor - I'm RELYING on it.. Fear is a great motivator. And a LL employee has the fear of losing their livelyhood. I beleive it makes them more accountable.. much more accountable than someone with a golden star slapped on thier user profile..

And after seeing how may people react/behave on these forums you think they wouldn't abuse that power? I find think *that's* naive...

Of course this an absolute sidestep of my original issue anyway:

It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how good they are or if joe blog would make a better moderator.. I pay LL to use their services.. which include this forum. I think so long as I tow the line and follow the rules set down by LL, I shouldn't BE moderated by anyone else..

Just as if I buy land in game I don't think anyone else should be able to tell me what to do with it, so long as I abide by the rules.

If we are all customers, and as such could be considered all of one standing -- why *should* one person have the right to moderate another?

Nope - I'm not paying a company to let another customer decide how I should use the service..

For me it's that simple.. and if i came to pass that a bunch of residents DO moderate the forums I'd stop[ using them.

If I wanted to be moderated by other players I'd use a player run forum....

Honestly it's the same root issue as the 'world government' threads - my answer on that issue is the same.. for the exact same reasons.

Siggy.

but you are. they also happen to be employees.

and if ll decided to use volunteers, that would be their business choice. volunteers are nice and cheap.hmm... ok. but i don't see how non-ll-employee sl residents would necessarily be worse at the job of moderation, than an ll-employee sl resident.

i'd go with what worked. if it were cheap that would be good, too.

Very well then - for the pedant.... I do not think that a NON EMPLOYEE of LL has the right to tell me how to use the service I pay them for...

How's that?

I don't think it's an unreasonable statement.. and if they were to turn it over to 'volunteers' I wouldn't use it.. If I wanted to go with a resident run forum.. I'd be doing it already..

Also I think I mentioned in every single post it isn't a matter of saying 'joe user won't make a good moderator' - in fact *you* said that.. "you are somehow implying" were your words - not mine.

And although I DO think it makes them more accountable, it comes down to who has the right to tell me, or you, or anyone else how to use the service.

LL has that right, they own it.. you, me, or anyone else doesn't -- we can suggest things, bring things to their attention, but thats it.. and in my opinion this is a good thing.

Siggy

if ll gave them that power, then would they have that right?using residents to moderator isn't the same as resident run forums nor is it "turning it over". ll would still have oversight, and the goals would be ll goals, presumably.so you don't think non-employee residents would be accountable enough?

Reread what you wrote here, and tell me if you think you'd like someone like you addressed here moderating the forums.

not that person, but there others i wouldn't mind. especially if ll kept an eye on them.

If LL has to keep that close of an eye on their volunteers, they might as well just do it themselves.

I agree with Siggy. I'd stop using the forums if the Lindens stopped doing the moderating.

The people who try and appoint themselves to positions of power are usually the least trustworthy with them.

Obviously it would - It's their biz to run as they see fit.. If they felt that was the way to go that's their call.

But if they do that, I for one won't be posting here anymore. It's not the deal I signed on for when I started using the forums, and I certainly wouldn't hang around in them.. if I wanted user moderation I would go to a third party site, where the worst thing that can happen is you get kicked off or flamed.



That is where we differ.. I see it as giving one resident - the same as me, you and everyone else power over my views, posts, and with the new guidelines, perhaps even over my account..

I'd be just as opposed to giving the power to delete objects on my land to Live Help and Mentors in game.. THEY are volunteers too... I think they do a good job.. but I don't want them able to do things above and beyond what I can do.

Sure - Joe Blogs may be an excellent forum moderator... But then again he may not be.



As I said in the last 3 or so posts (along with the reasoning behind it) No.. I don't.

There is a world of difference between a volunteer and an employee.. miles apart in what they stand to lose if they abused powers.. I think you, and most other people reading could see that point of view... I don't feel the need to go back and re-state what I said in my last 3 replies.

Agree - Disagree, up to you.. Those are my thoughts on it.

i've worked with several volunteer organizations. i've seen very little in salient difference between volunteers and employees.

keeping an eye on them, and keeping a close eye are different levels of effort.

keeping an eye on many volunteers may be less in paid hours than moderating with ll employees, but keeping a close eye on volunteers may be more in paid hours than moderating with ll employees.

i think most of the people are in the forums are good, level-headed, and reasonable people capable of doing a good job moderating.

the question maybe if enough of the the good, level-headed, and reasonable would want to deal with the head-ache of dealing with the forums.

I haven't seen the study that correlates those who seek appointment with trustworthiness. Do you have a URL to that data by chance?

~Ulrika~

http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.rnc.org

Enjoy

but volunteers would be selected by ll out fo those who applied - not self-appointed - i would guess. not everyone who would apply would be a powermonger.

and being an ll employee isn't a guarantee of not being a powermonger. but one would hope ll selects well from the pool of applicants for employment. similarly for volunteers.

certainly those who seek power for power's sake are untrustworthy.

The reason a player-made-employee doesn't bother me is, in large part, because I have an expectation that LL will keep their folks in check and from becoming as prone to reactionism as many of the forum posters.

Perhaps I am niave, but I expect there is some manner of vetting in place and a clear expectation that is communicated to any player elevated to moderator --abuse of authority will not be tolerated.

To the point, it is a reasonable expectation that any user of a forum who is promoted to a position of authority is known for as little personal bias as possible given the humanity involved, and as much interest in erring on the side of caution as can be expected in a place where many go out of their way to inflame one another.

I do not presume upon LL and think that, as a customer, I have a better understanding of their interests and needs than they do themselves. Nor do I harbor the unrealistic expectation that a corporate interest will divest itself of self-interest in the pursuit of fostering community amongst its customers.

I fully expect LL to promote a civil and lively venue for discourse. I fully expect LL to eliminate behavior that impedes or outright disrupts that end. I fully expect if I impede or disrupt that I will be just as subject to their discipline as anyone else, and if/when such a thing occurs I will not play 'But mommy -- they did it too!'... since the point is not that we as customers are responsible for pointing out the behavior of others (even though we often take this upon ourselves, usually with poor results), but that we are responsible for our own behavior and fully responsible for the things we choose to say and do... and despite wishes to the contrary and social issues like conformity and reification, the only "power" we can rightfully expect to wield is the power to control our own fingers.

When I found I had forgotten parts of the above, I took some time off to remind myself. I'm no less irritated by some of the things I see, but I'm much less affected by them, because ultimately, that's a choice.

I've worked with Interns and found a lot of them to be lazy bastards..

But that is neither here nor there.
How much power are you giving your volunteer organisations over yourself and what you can and can't do?

Lets look at the worst case scenario - a moderator does something that is considered totally heinous and unethical... lets see what could happen:

Volunteer : Permaban from an online game
Employee : Fired.

For me its a no brainer which is worse - banned from a video game or losing your job. I'd say losing your job is far worse.

You could say that some people make enough for it to BE their jobs -- well and good.. How many times a day does Anshe post here? I doubt she has the time to moderate forums...

For me the measure of how far I'll trust someone with power over me is by what happens if they abuse it.. in this case I think one person clearly has more to lose... Therefore I'm more inclinded to trust them with it.. Not to mention that that's their job - not something they're doing in their spare time for fun.. And with any job, a level of professionalism is expected (or you usually don't work for too long), demanded..

Apart from that - as I said before - I simply don't think any resident should have that kind of privilege over another.. I think it should remain in the hands of LL and their employees.

Maybe this comes from a difference in viewpoint on what SL is - I understand the views of people who see it as a new virutal frontier - a 'metaverse' 'cyberspace' buzzword de jour where our virtual citizens should have virtual rights. I totally see where they are coming from.

However, for me SL is entertainment. A trip to blockbuster, a dip in the pool, 2 hours picking guitar, or a brew on a kayak going across lake mead. I don't particularly like the idea of another consumer dictating what I can and can't do.

And given that there is a choice to post or not to post -- I would choose not posting.

Siggy.

Over the last few months, I've watched people tear each other apart in these forums. I've watched flame wars, personal insults, libel, rumors, gossip, outright lies, whining about non-existant personal attacks, drama-queening, attention-whoring, outcries to end someone's ability to post, and finally some extremely petty victory parties when that ability was ended. And some of this was done by the nicest and most responsible posters in the forums.

Do I want volunteers from these forums to be able to delete posts they don't like, or alter the words of others? Not a chance in hell.

LL's moderators are as human as the rest of us, but their jobs (their livelihoods) are on the line if they act out of spite, malice, greed or any other self-serving motivation. The same cannot be said of volunteers.

I do not want volunteers being able to moderate these forums. It's LL's choice to make, just as it would be my choice not to post here anymore, but that's my opinion on the matter.

I read somewhere LL chooses it's applicants by having them bang their heads against a brick wall and the one that lasts the longest is hired.

i want ll to stop the nanny method of moderation of the forums. but that's not likely.

wishes aside...

given what ll is doing, i think volunteers are a viable option. ll has a problem with not enough staff for the forums. it's cost effective to have volunteers.

i always image jeska, pathfinder, and the other lindens reading the forum between beats of pounding their head against their screen. read *tonk* read *tonk* read *tonk* read *tonk* read *tonk* read *tonk* read *tonk* read

As I said, it's their decision to make, but I would choose not to frequent the forums any longer.

Hot damn! I could totally work there! I ROCK at that game!

Just imagine me as a moderator... better yet, imagine me as a Linden! That's pretty scarey..

Honestly - I don't want people like ME running the show.

on the otherhand, that's a punitive based line of thinking. it's along the line that people only do well because they are afraid of getting in trouble.

one can try to select people who are least likely to need reprimanding. some people do well because they are good people.

most people being a mix, being banned from the game may be enough fear factor, if the person is good enough to start with.

why?

what would change in your experience? what are you afraid would happen?

why select the worst case scenario - that volunteer moderators would be untrustworthy?