[Unofficial] New Global Moderator Election - [Discussion]

[xhomerx10]

Sure.  I don't believe the situation is so dire that we can't take the time to do it properly.

Choosing someone who's partly inactive or semi-active when the need for a active global moderator arises is counter-intuitive.

 Okay, wait.  This is not what I was talking about!  In his own words, Achow101 forgot to include one of the staff.  I'm saying we need to ensure no person is left behind before proceeding.  If a mod is not logging in regularly, that's a totally different story and not what I was originally concerned about.

This remedy still requires all who already voted to notice there was a change and I doubt people are going to keep checking the thread when it bumps since that happens every time there is a vote.

There's plenty of time to fix your vote. I'm pretty sure that the error rate would be marginal in the end.

 You're probably right.

[1715053803]

1715053803

[1715053803]

1715053803

[1715053803]

1715053803

[1715053803]

1715053803

[1715053803]

1715053803

[Lauda]

Okay, wait.  This is not what I was talking about!  In his own words, Achow101 forgot to include one of the staff.  I'm saying we need to ensure no person is left behind before proceeding.  If a mod is not logging in regularly, that's a totally different story and not what I was originally concerned about.

The PM had to be split off into two due to number of participants limit. Hostfat seems to have been in the middle and did not end up getting a PM. I'm sure achow101 double checked later that everyone else got their PM.

You're probably right.

It's not a big issue since it was tackled early (it would be if it were official though).

[xhomerx10]

I removed the line

"Potete votare anche per me, se volete "

In english means

"You can vote even for me, if you want "

I can delete all the post if you prefer.

EDIT:
Removed.

 Why delete your post altogether?  Is this vote only for English-speaking, full members and above?
Shouldn't there be a post in all the other local language boards?

[Lauda]

Why delete your post altogether?  Is this vote only for English-speaking, full members and above? Shouldn't there be a post in all the other local language boards?

Rules:

• No Electioneering. This means that you cannot campaign for a candidate in order to get more people to vote for him. Any user found to be electioneering will have their vote disregarded. Any candidate who is electioneering will be removed from the ballot.

Which ends up people ignoring the following rule (as I had predicted earlier):

If you are not familiar with the forum, the moderators, and the forum rules, do not vote,

[xhomerx10]

Why delete your post altogether?  Is this vote only for English-speaking, full members and above? Shouldn't there be a post in all the other local language boards?

Rules:

• No Electioneering. This means that you cannot campaign for a candidate in order to get more people to vote for him. Any user found to be electioneering will have their vote disregarded. Any candidate who is electioneering will be removed from the ballot.

Which ends up people ignoring the following rule (as I had predicted earlier):

If you are not familiar with the forum, the moderators, and the forum rules, do not vote,

 So then the vote is only for English-speaking full members and above?
How can it be considered electioneering to let people who don't speak English know there is an election?

[Lauda]

So then the vote is only for English-speaking full members and above?

No, that is not what I have said.

How can it be considered electioneering to let people who don't speak English know there is an election?

If you don't ever visit Meta, and/or are not concerned/familiar with the forum rules and moderation on a wide scale, then I have no idea why you would be voting for a global moderator in the first place?

[achow101]

So then the vote is only for English-speaking full members and above?
How can it be considered electioneering to let people who don't speak English know there is an election?

This vote is for those who are familiar with the forum, the moderators, and the forum rules. Those who care enough about those three things are likely to be people who read meta. Those who do not read meta are probably those that don't care about forum happenings, and we don't really want their vote because they will not be as informed as those who do.

The electioneering aspect is that such posts essentially tell people in that section to go and vote even though normally they wouldn't. Because the poster is also a candidate and moderator of that section, it inherently biases the votes from people in that section towards that moderator (just like how I have votes probably mostly due to the fact that I made the thread). If all the local mods made such a post, it would bias the vote towards the local moderators because those of us who are not local mods would not be able to make such a post in our own sections to get people from our sections to vote. Thus, such posts should not exist as they make the voting unbalanced.

[xhomerx10]

Seems I got hung up on the words global and election.

[Mr. Big]

Seems like this election is going to divide us all if we are going to make a local moderator a candidate to be a global moderator, why not just promote it according to hierarchy? I suggest that if we are going to elect a global moderator it should be from the staff excluding the local moderators, and promote one local moderator to fill up the position of the promoted staff and have a local election to replace the position of the local mod promoted? That way this election will not be politicized by those with motive ( if there is ).

Then submit the result to Theymos and let him decide.

[Lutpin]

Seems like this election is going to divide us all if we are going to make a local moderator a candidate to be a global moderator, why not just promote it according to hierarchy? I suggest that if we are going to elect a global moderator it should be from the staff excluding the local moderators, and promote one local moderator to fill up the position of the promoted staff and have a local election to replace the position of the local mod promoted?

If I understood the moderation levels correctly, there is no difference between topic section moderators like achow101 and "local" section moderators like HostFat.
Some moderators even fill both positions at a time, like Lauda, who acts as topic section moderator for the Speculation section and as "local" section moderator for the Croatian local section.
(Same goes for Mitchell btw, who moderates Beginners&Help/Project Dev on one hand, and the Dutch local board on the other.)

Hence saying to do promotions according to "hierachy" doesn't really change anything about the current situation, all are on the same level here.

[Mr. Big]

Seems like this election is going to divide us all if we are going to make a local moderator a candidate to be a global moderator, why not just promote it according to hierarchy? I suggest that if we are going to elect a global moderator it should be from the staff excluding the local moderators, and promote one local moderator to fill up the position of the promoted staff and have a local election to replace the position of the local mod promoted?

If I understood the moderation levels correctly, there is no difference between topic section moderators like achow101 and "local" section moderators like HostFat.
Some moderators even fill both positions at a time, like Lauda, who acts as topic section moderator for the Speculation section and as "local" section moderator for the Croatian local section.
(Same goes for Mitchell btw, who moderates Beginners&Help/Project Dev on one hand, and the Dutch local board on the other.)

Hence saying to do promotions according to "hierachy" doesn't really change anything about the current situation, all are on the same level here.

EDIT:
What I am trying to say is those who solely moderates the local boards and not handling any other main boards should not or may not be a candidate to become a global moderator... I've seen the election, it looks like it is now based on their popularity and  local supporters (including my self )fully supports local moderator... I am not against local moderators to be a candidate, but I think it would be fair if we elect from the staffs like Lauda,achow101 and Mitchell and other moderators like them who contributed a lot in main boards, and just have another election from local moderators to go one level higher...  

[HostFat]

I don't know about the other local moderators, but I feel quite present on the forum
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=203;sa=statPanel

Also, usually the local moderators have their hands on all possible sections (by theme), so it is even possible to say that there is a possibility that a local moderator can be better of other moderators that were active only on a single theme sub-section of the international part.

This isn't to say that "I am the one", but just to not lower the value of the local moderators, only because they usually work only on a different language than english.

[Foxpup]

Daily update:

Two candidate preferred vote:
|
   Lauda (45.5%) ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓██▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ (54.5%) Mitchell
|
Lauda: 35
Mitchell: 42
Exhausted: 12

Swing-o-meter:
|
   Lauda (+1.4%) ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░█████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ (-1.4%) Mitchell
|

The primary vote is a dead heat, and Lauda still trails by 7 votes after preferences. Especially telling today is the enormous number of exhausted ballots, almost entirely from the sudden and concerning influx of HostFat voters. Most of them didn't even have a #2 preference, and so, even though they have the numbers to decide this tight election, they won't. Would it be electioneering to remind HostFat supporters to vote for more than one candidate, otherwise their vote won't count if their #1 choice doesn't win?

Also, I'm still counting these votes by hand (as an Australian, I know how to do that), even though the TCP is now shown on the public spreadsheet. Consider it an independent audit.

EDIT: Typo.

[achow101]

Especially telling today is the enormous number of exhausted ballots, almost entirely from the sudden and concerning influx of HostFat voters.

I think that was probably due to HostFat's post about the election which has since been removed.

Most of them didn't even have a #2 preference, and so, even though they have the numbers to decide this tight election, they won't. Would it be electioneering to remind HostFat supporters to vote for more than one candidate, otherwise their vote won't count if their #1 choice doesn't win?

As long as you don't tell them who to vote for, then that's fine.

Also, I'm still counting these votes by hand (as an Australian, I know how to do that), even though the TCP is now shown on the public spreadsheet. Consider it an independent audit.

It's good to know that my script isn't failing when used with more than three test votes.

[Quickseller]

1. Lauda should be removed from the options because he is clearly not qualified to be a global moderator, as he lacks the ability to maintain even the appearance of neutrality by leaving multiple negative trust ratings against people who his disagrees with, as well as his severe lack of maturity.

2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.

Based on the above criteria, I would say that the only person on the ballot that is qualified to be a global mod is mprep. Although I really do not frequent the altcoin sections very often, it is my impression that mprep's moderation of the altcoin sections have been mostly successful. It is my understanding that immidiately prior to mprep taking over the altcoin sections, the entire altcoin sub was a hot mess, when he first took over, it looks like he made some changes, and started enforcing some rules that caused a little bit of drama/complaints. The number of meta threads about mprep seem to have dropped down and/or entirely stopped.

The Russian local section, has, by far the most number of posts in all of the local subs, so depending on his performance, it may be wise to consider xandry as a global mod. It is also my understanding that he has been a moderator for a fairly long time without any major issues.

Hostfat also moderates one of the more major local subs for what I understand to be many years, without issues, so he may be qualified to be a global mod. Although he does live in a similar time zone as one of the most active global moderators, so there may be little additional advantage to promoting him.

Other things that may be considered when deciding who to promote, would include how many reports are 'ignored' how accurately are reports handled, among potentially other things. Many moderators in general are not very active with their "moderator" account in posting in order to avoid moderator harassment -- I do not think how 'active' someone is in posting should be a considered in deciding who should become a global mod, although I would not say that being very active should disqualify someone.

3. I am not sure the problem is that we do not have enough global moderators, the problem may be a policy issue. Some policies have been somewhat recently implemented, that should, over time reduce the quantity of low quality posts, for example this one banning threads whose only response can be a low quality post in 'off-topic', this one banning low value threads in 'bitcoin discussion', and this policy of blacklisting certain signatures whose campaign operators allow too high a level of low quality of posts.

[Lauda]

Seems like this election is going to divide us all if we are going to make a local moderator a candidate to be a global moderator, why not just promote it according to hierarchy?

Well, you have to remember that it is unofficial. This means that even if someone wins, that does not necessarily mean that they get promoted. That said, I do not expect the outcome to have a strong influence on rational people (e.g. 'divide us all').

What I am trying to say is those who solely moderates the local boards and not handling any other main boards should not or may not be a candidate to become a global moderator... I've seen the election, it looks like it is now based on their popularity and  local supporters (including my self )fully supports local moderator...

Yes, this was one of the original concerns, strongly pointed out by at least 1 more moderator. You should not be casting votes due to subjective bias, but this happens very frequently in every election and there's not much that can be done against it.

Daily update:
-snip-
Also, I'm still counting these votes by hand (as an Australian, I know how to do that), even though the TCP is now shown on the public spreadsheet. Consider it an independent audit.

Thanks. For some reason I like this representation (maybe it's because of the blue color). I shall try to create a chart in the final sheets page as well.

[shorena]

-snip-
2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.

I agree and like to add that a vote is mostly a popularity contest. I dont know how active - in terms of moderation - any of the mods are I voted for. My 1st vote went to mprep mainly because they have been around for some time and had - for me - noticable positive impact on the forum. The same is true for mitchell, lauda (lets not open the can whether or not they should be mod in the first place here as well) and achow101, from my perspective. I can say little about other mods, their activity and ableness in this regard. Does that mean they deserve the position less? No. I still voted, but I think it should stay an internal decision and it is my understanding that it still is.

[jamalaezaz]

now. what does this unofficial mean? is it because you guys doing all this without theymos agreement?

Yes.

I want to see theymos or Cyrus to confirm that they will follow the result of this election.

They will not. There is no guarantee that any of the admins will promote a Global Moderator based upon the outcome of this election. Read the disclaimer I wrote at the bottom of the voting thread.

than what is the sense doing all these things when you are saying there is no guarantee that admin will follow that and promote a mod to  Glob Mod seat on bases of community votes?

I think all these things are useless and waste of time..  let theymos. decide if the forum really need a glob mod or not. and who he want to give that position.

[achow101]

1. Lauda should be removed from the options because he is clearly not qualified to be a global moderator, as he lacks the ability to maintain even the appearance of neutrality by leaving multiple negative trust ratings against people who his disagrees with, as well as his severe lack of maturity.

Trust and maturity are (mostly) irrelevant to a person's moderation ability. Maturity is also a subjective assessment; what you think as immature I may think as not.

2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.

Based upon the above objective criteria, both Lauda and Mitchell are qualified. Both are patrollers (IIRC) and both moderate multiple sections; Lauda moderates croatian and speculation and Mitchell moderates Beginners & Help and Project Development. Both have also had their positions for a decent amount of time.

However the candidates for this election were chosen based upon response to my PM and moderation activity during the past month regardless of time as moderator and sections moderated.

Other things that may be considered when deciding who to promote, would include how many reports are 'ignored' how accurately are reports handled, among potentially other things. Many moderators in general are not very active with their "moderator" account in posting in order to avoid moderator harassment -- I do not think how 'active' someone is in posting should be a considered in deciding who should become a global mod, although I would not say that being very active should disqualify someone.

Indeed. Posting activity was not the only criteria for activity; moderation activity was also considered. I only included those who had moderation activity in the past month (and they were the only ones who responded anyways). This data is based upon mod payment data which theymos posts in the Staff Forum. Those who get paid are active in moderation activities.

3. I am not sure the problem is that we do not have enough global moderators, the problem may be a policy issue. Some policies have been somewhat recently implemented, that should, over time reduce the quantity of low quality posts, for example this one banning threads whose only response can be a low quality post in 'off-topic', this one banning low value threads in 'bitcoin discussion', and this policy of blacklisting certain signatures whose campaign operators allow too high a level of low quality of posts.

Yes, additional policy would help, but with additional policy there also needs to be additional enforcement. IMO enforcement is currently lacking.

[Quickseller]

-snip-
2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.

I agree and like to add that a vote is mostly a popularity contest. I dont know how active - in terms of moderation - any of the mods are I voted for. My 1st vote went to mprep mainly because they have been around for some time and had - for me - noticable positive impact on the forum. The same is true for mitchell, lauda (lets not open the can whether or not they should be mod in the first place here as well) and achow101, from my perspective. I can say little about other mods, their activity and ableness in this regard. Does that mean they deserve the position less? No. I still voted, but I think it should stay an internal decision and it is my understanding that it still is.

Well the majority of what the various moderators do is done 'behind the scenes' and the public does not know which moderator took a specific action. When a mod reports a post to the moderators who have authority to act in a section, no one else knows, when a mod moves a thread, much of the time, no one knows, when a post is deleted no one knows who deleted said thread.

Speaking strictly in terms of what the various mods have done for the forum while wearing their "moderator hat" -- I agree that mprep has done a good job in cleaning up the altcoin sections; I agree that mitchell has used his bot in order to stop much of the 'backlink spam' from impacting most users; I agree that achow101 has used his "staff" title to help users filter out bad advice in the "help" sections, and leverages his expert technical abilities to give very good advice in the "help" sections.

My concern about making mitchell a global mod is that many months ago, he said that he mostly reads a few select sections (I am not sure if this is still true or not), so he might not be interested in reading threads outside of those sections, which would be necessary to handle reports outside of those sections. I would vote that archdow101 be made moderator of the dev & tech section without further consideration, and the bitcoin discussion section if he has an interest in becoming a global mod -- after he gets more experience in moderating a more broad range of boards, I would not doubt that he will become qualified.

Trust and maturity are (mostly) irrelevant to a person's moderation ability. Maturity is also a subjective assessment; what you think as immature I may think as not.

The actions of the various moderators are monitored by theymos, although theymos may not be able to monitor all of the potential conflicts that moderators are involved in. As a result of this, moderators need to be trued to avoid taking any actions involving anything that might cause an appearance of a conflict of interest if said action were to be made public.

Moderators are -- even though they are "officially" volunteers -- essentially the face the forum, and anything a moderator does or says will reflect on the reputation of the forum as a whole. If a moderator is acting like a 5 year old kid, then that will reflect negatively on the forum. If someone were to act like a kid in a job interview, I would not want to hire them, especially if their role is to interact with (either internal or external) customers.

I have seen multiple people, of which had a neutral stance in regards to Lauda, imply and/or explicitly say that Lauda lacks maturity.

2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.

Based upon the above objective criteria, both Lauda and Mitchell are qualified. Both are patrollers (IIRC) and both moderate multiple sections; Lauda moderates croatian and speculation and Mitchell moderates Beginners & Help and Project Development. Both have also had their positions for a decent amount of time.

I would not consider any of those sections to be "major sections". (Mitchell also moderates the Nederlands (Dutch) section). If there was a moderation error in any of those sections, then not as many people would be impacted verses if the mistake was regarding a thread in the bitcoin discussion section, and the error would not affect anyone's finances nor any kind of trade as would happen in the marketplace sections.

However the candidates for this election were chosen based upon response to my PM and moderation activity during the past month regardless of time as moderator and sections moderated.

Correct. I was merely giving feedback as to who I believe should be made global mod.

3. I am not sure the problem is that we do not have enough global moderators, the problem may be a policy issue. Some policies have been somewhat recently implemented, that should, over time reduce the quantity of low quality posts, for example this one banning threads whose only response can be a low quality post in 'off-topic', this one banning low value threads in 'bitcoin discussion', and this policy of blacklisting certain signatures whose campaign operators allow too high a level of low quality of posts.

Yes, additional policy would help, but with additional policy there also needs to be additional enforcement. IMO enforcement is currently lacking.

Have you noticed any particular sections in which enforcement is lacking, more so then others? If so, which ones? Do you think it is an issue of existing moderators taking too long to handle problems, or is it an issue of problems going unaddressed at all. If theymos is not ready to promote someone to a global moderator, then he might be willing to add additional coverage to certain sections in need of additional enforcement.