Forum Moderation Idea

Ok, this is a little wacky, but I generally like to blurt out everything that crosses my distorted mind anyway, so here goes...

I have been noticing that the tone of forum debate improves significantly when there are multiple people posting on a given subject that are:

- smart
- reasonable
- polite, civil, etc.

What seems to happen is this "raises the bar" for other posters and IMO a kind of "civilizing effect" occurs wherein posters who would normally be less than civil really try to involve themselves in the debate and prove to others that they to can be a "civil intellectual" of sorts.

This effect is really noticeable in group forums but seems to occur even in General.

Similarly, the presence of a single angry "tard" (or several) seems to drag everyone down. Otherwise serious, polite and smart people start stooping to the lowest level and take extreme glee in trouncing said "tard," but using the self-same tactics! This effectively multiplies the "tard" population, and sends things spiraling out of control.

So my thought is that perhaps it's foolish to try to "punish the tards" in the traditional sense of forum moderation. The "tards" are in fact, sometimes ourselves. Additionally, uneven (or perceived to be uneven), "tard" punishment leads to a further escalation in "tard" behavior from people who would also otherwise be "non-tards."

My suggestion then, is that it would be more productive then, to simply encourage the presence and growth of the "non-tard" population rather than try to eliminate the "tard" population, and to bring up the level of debate that way.

The controlling mechanisms then would include some kind of positive reward for "non-tard" behavior. People who consistently help others on the forums, or make positive contributions to debates and generally remain civil in the face of great adversity would be rewarded in some way. This would also make the job of "moderation" better in that the moderator would be focussing on the good posts instead of the bad ones and skip lightly through with her magic wand anointing the good behavior of forum posters and ignoring the "tards."

Carrots instead of sticks..... I like it

Interesting idea. Positive reinforcement is always more effective than negative.

I LOVE THIS IDEA!

Please please please please Lindens take notice!

What a wonderful and delightful idea, and so well written. I hope that this can be taken as the valuable suggestion it is. There are indeed so many polite, thoughtful and intelligent people posting to these forums, and to encourage more of them through rewards would be outstanding!!

(Ok..so..where's my L$ for this post???)

I'll accept payment in candy and other tasty treats

This is a very interresting idea, Dianne.
I wouldn't mind seeing it in action.

Wow, such unqualified support.
I am not sure how it would be applied in a practical sense though. Like what kind of rewards and whether they would really be enough etc. Some kind of "forum cred" system maybe?

3 thumbs up from me. Don't ask me where the 3rd came from. You don't want to know.

Tell us, tell us!!
Is it kinky??

I guess it is... if you're into that kind of stuff.

I think we could do with both. There are a lot of worthless threads being posted. I would like to see more drama threads being locked, and faster. Starting with my own nazi thread that people keep bumping

And I would like to see no threads, other than those that violate the ToS or CS, locked. What is drama to some is comedy, or thought-provoking to others.

It sounds like a very cool idea. However, I think given SL's size, discussion forums will soon go the way of the dodo bird in the next year or so. Instead, we'll have a range of resident-run forums of different styles, from ones that may be as utopian as you describe, across the gamut to ones resembling the Jerry Springer show.

ResMods seem to me to be LL's last attempt to keep a harness on this horse, however, it may prove to be the straw that breaks the camels back in the long run. I guess we'll see! Still, very cool idea in principle.

Regards,

-Flip

That would be a terrible shame since I love the forums as they were.

Conceptually, I am behind the promotion of the positive rather than trying to weed out what is "undesirable", which is extremely difficult and often arbitrary.

I need to see some kind of working plan. You have rightly pointed out that the practical application of this idea has not been devised.

I will also note that this is my all time favorite forum quote:



I thank you for that.

It is an excellent idea, but I think Flip is dead on. The forums aren't scalable as they currently exist. I think we will end up with a Linden sponsored Announcement forum, and a multitude of 3rd party sites.

I'd like to see the forums survive because I like having just one site that I have to check out regularly. Other gaming companies succeed at this with much larger populations, however, the flaming that I've seen in other forums makes the SL ones look peaceful.

*waits to see what happens next*

Yea, i don't see a way around that not happing, I just hope we don't get too fragmented. I hope that some of the people with already highly visited websites would band together and create one forum.

What a shame, I hope you're wrong. The forum really is a community warts and all. Sure there's some poop floating around, but also a lot of interesting discussions and ideas get thrown around too. It's really quite easy to use the ignore button or simply ignore the flame fests. It really doesn't require that much effort.

Not sure I accept the doom and gloom outlook. The forums have had much worse periods in their history and have been pretty tame lately.

I agree. Plus these things aren't really boolean in nature. It doesn't have to be a matter of "Accept resmods, or no forums for you!" With such a highly energized forum community I think it's safe to say that the entire community would participate in an effort to save the forums before "termination" were the only solution.

My thoughts exactly. If it came down to having no forums or excepting new changes, I would choose the latter err...ladder? anyways, I really like the idea of there being some sort of forum credit system to reward positive post recognized by our peers and/or lindens. I sent an e-mail to Jeska providing her with a link to this thread encouraging this idea. Not that I have any pull but its better than doing nothing.

MJ

LOL

Gold Stars for grown ups? Are you serious?


There have been many attempts at intelligent discussion on these forums and those threads are short, and usually ignored. The idiot threads like "Free Accounts will make more furries" live on. LL has set the bar extremely low for acceptable content on the forums and in world. That is unlikely to change. The current desired customer base makes it unlikely the bar will be raised.

Although I am a memeber of a board and people who make posts that are helpful can earn "points" and they level up on the boards. Does it mean anything? Not really you get an icon in your forum posts which looks cool, but if you are over 16 and impressed by that, you need to seek professional help.

Yes, sir.

You have been awarded the Second Life Gold Star Forum Behavior award (fourth class) for posing a question as to the practical applications of this proposal. It would have been third or even second class had you not phrased it in such a negative way.