More Moderators Please

[west52keep64]

Deafening silence from the mods. Ciao Bella.

1. We (try to) have a life as well you know
2. I think letting the discussion run a bit without too much mod questions etc can be good.

Anyway, a new mod is likely entering the field soon
Candidates can send their resume as well - please don't be too eager, that's suspicious

Also, as for rating abuse, obviously there are a lot of votes to take into account, but rest assured, PMs are being sent (perhaps not enough, but it feels like quite a lot already).

Steven, that's all about "let them discuss"

Sorry! I couldn't resist.

[Steven]

Deafening silence from the mods. Ciao Bella.

1. We (try to) have a life as well you know
2. I think letting the discussion run a bit without too much mod questions etc can be good.

Anyway, a new mod is likely entering the field soon
Candidates can send their resume as well - please don't be too eager, that's suspicious

Also, as for rating abuse, obviously there are a lot of votes to take into account, but rest assured, PMs are being sent (perhaps not enough, but it feels like quite a lot already).

Steven, that's all about "let them discuss"

Sorry! I couldn't resist.

Thank you for voicing that concern

[AeroDynamic]

1. We (try to) have a life as well you know
2. I think letting the discussion run a bit without too much mod questions etc can be good.

Anyway, a new mod is likely entering the field soon
Candidates can send their resume as well - please don't be too eager, that's suspicious

Also, as for rating abuse, obviously there are a lot of votes to take into account, but rest assured, PMs are being sent (perhaps not enough, but it feels like quite a lot already).

Steven, that's all about "let them discuss"

Sorry! I couldn't resist.

Thank you for voicing that concern

can you confirm, you've completely had a look at it?

[notsofast]

This forum is built on phpBB. Unfortunately it does not have the ability (as far as I can tell) to ban a user from a topic (thread). That would have been the best solution. Someone takes the bait, ban them from the thread. (If the troll keeps on trolling, ban them too from that same thread.) People will learn quickly.

[El Scorchio]

This forum is built on phpBB. Unfortunately it does not have the ability (as far as I can tell) to ban a user from a topic (thread). That would have been the best solution. Someone takes the bait, ban them from the thread. (If the troll keeps on trolling, ban them too from that same thread.) People will learn quickly.

Aside from some users who may well (allegedly) have multiple accounts so just flip to a different unbanned one and carry on regardless while waiting for the original account to become unbanned again. No idea how you'd even start to manage to police that, though.

[dans79]

This forum is built on phpBB. Unfortunately it does not have the ability (as far as I can tell) to ban a user from a topic (thread). That would have been the best solution. Someone takes the bait, ban them from the thread. (If the troll keeps on trolling, ban them too from that same thread.) People will learn quickly.

Aside from some users who may well (allegedly) have multiple accounts so just flip to a different unbanned one and carry on regardless while waiting for the original account to become unbanned again. No idea how you'd even start to manage to police that, though.

You bind accounts to mobile phones via a pass code that it texted to the phone. It's easy for trolls to set-up a bunch of free email accounts. Even cheap prepaid phones cost money, so the trolls have to jump through a lot of hoops just to set-up a trolling account! If you make them revalidate the phone every few months via text it really limits them!

[El Scorchio]

This forum is built on phpBB. Unfortunately it does not have the ability (as far as I can tell) to ban a user from a topic (thread). That would have been the best solution. Someone takes the bait, ban them from the thread. (If the troll keeps on trolling, ban them too from that same thread.) People will learn quickly.

Aside from some users who may well (allegedly) have multiple accounts so just flip to a different unbanned one and carry on regardless while waiting for the original account to become unbanned again. No idea how you'd even start to manage to police that, though.

You bind accounts to mobile phones via a pass code that it texted to the phone. It's easy for trolls to set-up a bunch of free email accounts. Even cheap prepaid phones cost money, so the trolls have to jump through a lot of hoops just to set-up a trolling account! If you make them revalidate the phone every few months via text it really limits them!

Good idea! TBH I'm totally on board with users being 'verified' as well.

[SiLo]

I'd just like to be given a reason when my posts get deleted. I just posted some actual top speed comparison data in the RB and Merc team threads for people to see, and the RB one just got deleted. It's directly relevant to the team discussion about setup of the cars. Should I post it in the car thread instead?

[RZS10]

First post car threads:

Please discuss ONLY technical items of this car, and refrain from speculation.

General discussion about the team, its drivers and performance can be posted in the team thread.

Doesn't belong there to my understanding ... should be in team threads or maybe the relevant race threads where it will be buried under endless bickering and baseless accusations of cheating

[SiLo]

First post car threads:

Please discuss ONLY technical items of this car, and refrain from speculation.

General discussion about the team, its drivers and performance can be posted in the team thread.

Doesn't belong there to my understanding ... should be in team threads or maybe the relevant race threads where it will be buried under endless bickering and baseless accusations of cheating

Exactly my thoughts!

[hollus]

SiLo, it has been a horrible day in that thread. When posts are deleted by the dozens, that can happen. But a top speed comparison is not out of place in that the thread, IMO, assuming that the right team is being compared.

Anyways, a though that came to my mind today: I think there is a large disconnect between user expectations (only some users, I guess) and the reality of how this site is run.
Nowadays most people have grown used to a 24/7 internet cycle, news come hourly, and responses in discussion might come in minutes. Essentially, I think some expect moderators to respond in 1-2 hours at all times.
Not that long ago, in F1T, the thread that got 15 posts (1 page worth) in one day, was the exception. And moderators would often hop on the day after a post, and still be able to act. Nowadays, specially when there is some aggravations, if we are away for 5 hours, several pages have been posted. that also makes the odd post delete less effective and escalate into a multi-post delete (we really would love post deletes to be a rare occurrence).

The thing is, we are not twitter, we are not youtube and we are not a mayor news organization. The manpower to live to those expectations is extremely unlikely to be available.

If you think about it, how much are you paying for your subscription to F1T? How many ads are you forced to see? But service expectation, due to inertia from other sites, is set a lot higher than what corresponds to that level. This site is Steven's side project, grown awesome over the years, then grown relatively huge. But is it not his day job. Neither is it my day job, and the same goes for the other mods.

Not blaming anyone, it is just that I think a lot of the friction (mods are frustrated about it too!) comes from a mismatch between implicit expectations from (some?) users and implicit limitations from the mod team.

[Stu]

**Tongue firmly in cheek**

Maybe someone should set up an “F1 speculative bollocks” forum, then we can get back to that!

Apologies, I’ll go fetch my coat….

[SiLo]

SiLo, it has been a horrible day in that thread. When posts are deleted by the dozens, that can happen. But a top speed comparison is not out of place in that the thread, IMO, assuming that the right team is being compared.

Anyways, a though that came to my mind today: I think there is a large disconnect between user expectations (only some users, I guess) and the reality of how this site is run.
Nowadays most people have grown used to a 24/7 internet cycle, news come hourly, and responses in discussion might come in minutes. Essentially, I think some expect moderators to respond in 1-2 hours at all times.
Not that long ago, in F1T, the thread that got 15 posts (1 page worth) in one day, was the exception. And moderators would often hop on the day after a post, and still be able to act. Nowadays, specially when there is some aggravations, if we are away for 5 hours, several pages have been posted. that also makes the odd post delete less effective and escalate into a multi-post delete (we really would love post deletes to be a rare occurrence).

The thing is, we are not twitter, we are not youtube and we are not a mayor news organization. The manpower to live to those expectations is extremely unlikely to be available.

If you think about it, how much are you paying for your subscription to F1T? How many ads are you forced to see? But service expectation, due to inertia from other sites, is set a lot higher than what corresponds to that level. This site is Steven's side project, grown awesome over the years, then grown relatively huge. But is it not his day job. Neither is it my day job, and the same goes for the other mods.

Not blaming anyone, it is just that I think a lot of the friction (mods are frustrated about it too!) comes from a mismatch between implicit expectations from (some?) users and implicit limitations from the mod team.

Thanks Hollus, you make a very fair point that I had not considered. Maybe moderators in different time zones? To be honest it's only really a few threads that seem to be troublesome, as I'm sure you are aware. Thanks for your hard work (and to all the other mods as well)

[El Scorchio]

Part of me thinks that it might be a good idea to give people more of an understanding (like Hollus has) of what the mods actually have to do and balance this with 'having a life' and maybe it'll help people think twice before posting sometimes- especially if they are motivated by stirring up an argument. I'm assuming the process of moderating a long argument which maybe started off as valid debate but descnded is pretty tedious and time consuming.

Maybe put offenders through 'mod community service' so they know what it's like.

[Just_a_fan]

I think it's time for a decision about the fundamental nature of the site.

Either the site is everything F1 or it's just a technical site. So, either we have threads for everything or we just have threads about specific cars and threads about general technical issues (engines, aero, suspension, etc.).

Currently we have race threads that become slanging matches, and we have other threads that likewise descend in to school yard silliness. These take up mod time.

Perhaps moderation should be limited to just preventing personal attacks and illegal content. Let people argue if they wish, any personal attacks get a warning followed by exclusion for repeat offenders. And that's it.

Or we drop the fan threads - the race threads are particularly rife but also the team threads can be bad too - and just have strictly moderated technical threads where OT / fan stuff is just deleted and repeat offenders excluded from the site.

One might also suggest a two-zone site. One zone is strictly moderated technical threads, the other zone a laissez-faire one where only personal/illegal content is moderated. Don't go in to either zone if you don't like the simple rules that apply therein.

Currently we have too much fan silliness leading to arguably inconsistent moderation (because it's difficult to be consistent when the rules about what is allowed are vague). And that stokes frustration in many of us.

So perhaps we need to decide what type of site we want. And with the greatest respect to Steven, this is the users' decision rather than Steven's or the mods' - without users there is no forum.