Politics & Society is trash. People go there, look at a headline, and post a few sentences of their first gut reaction without reading any of the other replies. Who here is up to the task of moderating the section in order to remove this garbage, but without hampering the free exchange of ideas there? It'll be tough, since I do want to hear the thoughts of people who can't speak perfect English, people with extreme/offensive ideas, people who are rude while still making legitimate points, etc. So it'll be a difficult balancing act.

Post in this thread if you're interested so I can see other people's comments on you.

Here are the top 20 reporters in that section over the last 90 days:

This may look a Joke but, is a Member qualified to be a Moderator? Or is it even possible though, I want to try this.

So, your solution to keep the free exchange of ideas is to ban lower ranked members?

I think we should probably be looking at more established members, though if you had hundreds of reports in there it might be a different case. If you want to be a mod then keep reporting and put in the work to show you would be beneficial as staff.


If theymos wants to keep the free exchange of ideas then he can go with my other suggestion of making it like Serious Discussion and nothing is impacted by that but who actually signs up here just to discuss politics? If you go in there it's just wall to wall kids from south east asia making multiple threads about whether you like your girlfriend or parents more or yet another thread about how much you believe in god or not. This is a bitcoin forum after all so I see no big issue in preventing new members who sign up just to farm their accounts by posting crap in there day after day. A lot of these farmers posts are 100% in there and they don't care about talking politics but just use it as a board to easily add to their post count whilst putting the smallest amount of thought or effort into their posts.

I agree with Hilariousetc. I'd love to post in discussions on that board, but not in the current swamp. All of his suggestions are good, and would help to reduce the workload on anyone who elects to moderate the board. Unfortunately, I'm taking on too many projects at the moment, so I regret I can't volunteer.

I'd support the new clean board, especially if sigs were blocked, and posts didn't count towards activity.

Thanks! But I barely read Politics & Society, and I don't want to spend more time on that board than I do now. Partially because it's currently filled with trash, but also because I try to stay away from political debates.
I wouldn't mind spending a few hours on that board once in a while with a big red delete button, but that's not enough to properly moderate it.

That being said:
As an example, let me have a look at the top topic: the effects of drugs on people...
The first 6 posts:
1. It's created by a Newbie who mainly posts in bounty threads and P&S.
2. Generic post by a Newbie who mainly posts in bounty threads and P&S.
3. Generic post by a Jr. Member who mainly posts in bounty threads, Off-topic and P&S.
4. A Youtube link dump from a Hero Member.
5. Generic post by a Full Member who mainly posts in bounty threads and P&S.
6. Useless post Newbie Off-topic, Economics and P&S.

I wouldn't miss any of those people if they stop posting on the forum. It's a really thin line between freedom of speech for people who can't speak perfect English and just shitposting. In my opinion, it would be a good start if at least 80% of the threads and probably also 80% of the posts in the remaining threads would be deleted.
But, I fear the spammers will move on to other boards if that happens. I already see more and more shitposters on the technical boards, trying to earn merit. Their posts get deleted quickly after being reported, but if enough of them move there, those boards will be lost too.

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It surprises me that only 15 people have reported more than one post in 3 months. That doesn't show much community involvement (although I don't know the numbers for other boards).

I had almost 1k reports in politics and off topic (in a few days), I was actually trying to help the mods clean it up a little (right before merit dropped).  The first 900 posts I had a 98% accuracy.  My last 100 reports "appeared" to be not be dealt with and my accuracy dropped to sub 90%.  I stopped reporting, if I wasn't accurate anymore I didn't want to waste the mods time.  If they were accurate but not being dealt with I didn't want to waste my time.

I would be willing to spend time in there trying to clean it up I'm in those sections already.

I don't like:
Shitposters, account and sig farmers
Redundant threads and answers
Scammers

I don't care:
Where a poster is from
What someones point of view is (as long as it not a redundant shitpost for post count)
how good someone English skills are (as long as it's not google translated English).  As long as the meaning of the post can be understood.

I used serious discussion as an alternative

It's nice to see that there's going to be an attempt to reclaim that section, I've noticed a few politics related discussions going on within serious discussion and have quite enjoyed a few of them. I used to think it was a lack of moderation within the section, but it appears by these stats that there just isn't enough reports.
 
On to the list though. Here's my personal thoughts on the candidates:

Flying Hellfish speaks for himself in the most active reporter in the section although, judging by the other report figures there isn't a whole lot of competition. That's probably because people just gave up and moved on to other sections like serious discussion. I think it says a lot though that Flying Hellfish is still reporting even though the section is completely drowned out by spammers and has been for a very long time.

If it's true that he had almost 1k reports in a few days I think that shows that he's willing to put in the work even if they wasn't all correct. It's very easy to get dishearten when your accuracy is falling and there's no way to verify why unless you manually keep on checking if it's been removed via the modlog, and especially in Politics and Society due to the sheer amount of spam. Although, 257 good reports is still a very respectable number.

Foxpup reports quite a few posts outside of Politics and Society and if I remember correctly has a very good accuracy percentage too. So he obviously knows what to report and likely how to deal with it. He's also shown the desire to better the forum by contributing to it throughout the years he's been here:
Reference 1
Reference 2
Reference 3


Vod I think it goes without saying that Vod has dedicated his time in ridding the community with scammers and has used his analytical skills to do so. Even though scams aren't moderated if Vod could use these analytical skills for moderation of the junk I'm sure he would be a good match.

There isn't enough active reporters of that section to really pick and choose though and if you do become stuck then I would be willing to help out. But, I haven't really visited that section on a regular basis in a long time and whoever you pick I'll be sure to start contributing more to reporting in that section now that there's going to be a dedicated mod dealing with it.

Yeah, other sections have multiple moderators and if it was one section then I would think that Politics and Society would be the most in need of multiple moderators.

It's a shame that you are busy because as far as I remember you report a few posts and seem to quite enjoy the political discussions. Same goes for LoyceV as I think they have also shown a desire to improve the forum wherever they can.

A few members before you have been made a moderator at lower ranks. If I remember correctly rickbig wasn't considered a high rank but, reported posts in a timezone where things wasn't getting handled. You seem to be willing to put in the work, but Politics and Society is a little different than those over at the alt section as they do tend to be a little more complicated. Although, I don't see why theymos wouldn't at least consider you if you threw your hat in.