We need a new global moderator.

[nutildah]

I'm not saying I'd do a better job than them, and for the most part I think they both do a good job, but we need some fresh blood in the moderation department. Both hilariousandco and mprep have been mods during my entire 7+ years on the forum. I can't help but think that, with the exception of dealing with giveaways, moderation is loosening to the point where it is encouraging a new wave of spammers on the forum.

A new global mod wouldn't be such a bad idea as they could pick up slack in other areas without a moderator, like P&S. I really can't think of a downside to adding new blood to the administration... things seem a bit stale up there.

[1715381971]

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[suchmoon]

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

I'm mostly clicking "Ignore" instead of "Report to moderator" these days. Makes everything 100% "Good". Doesn't leave much to read though.

[Zedpastin]

Would it be better to get a moderator for the Politics & Society sub forum instead?

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

Maybe a april fools joke?

[RickDeckard]

Both hilariousandco and mprep have been mods during my entire 7+ years on the forum. I can't help but think that, with the exception of dealing with giveaways, moderation is loosening to the point where it is encouraging a new wave of spammers on the forum.

While I already recognize staff members more easily than I did a couple of months ago, I wasn't sure what the full list was. Your thread made me search for some sort of page where we could see who, in fact, is actively part of staff as of today (or at least very recently). I've found this thread - List of the forum's admins/ global moderators/ staffs - by @tranthidung that was recently updated (at least May 2021). I think it gives everyone who reads this thread a full scope of how the "board" of staff is actually composed of.

I can't help but think that, with the exception of dealing with giveaways, moderation is loosening to the point where it is encouraging a new wave of spammers on the forum.

Ever since I've came back more activelty to the forum I've been doing my best to report every kind of thread / spammer that I see "being born" in the new threads - and I must say that albeit I have a very small number of good reported posts (around 370ish) I do have the feeling that if I dedicated a full day to the activity that number would for sure increase (the overall nº of reports, without saying that it's going to be for sure a good report). If we take a look at https://bpip.org/ within the past 3 months we've got 93,102 active profiles. If we assume that 5 % (don't know how accurate this would be, sadly I don't think it may be this high but I would like to be wrong on this one) of those users - +-4,655 - dedicate some of their time to report threads/posts, I can't even imagine how does the moderation inbox looks like for the previously mentioned staff members. Add to that task the needed attention/dedication that they have to take in account regarding other activities (like you said giveaways and such) and they can be, indeed, few when compared with the overall work that they must have at hands.

A new global mod wouldn't be such a bad idea as they could pick up slack in other areas without a moderator, like P&S. I really can't think of a downside to adding new blood to the administration... things seem a bit stale up there.

I honestly don't have a clue in what the optimum number of global moderators should be - mainly because I don't know what KPI's one should follow in order to justify the addition/removal of them. Here's my brainstorming of ideas on this subject:

• Should we look for daily number of threads being created vs. the amount of reports being generated?
• The nº of days/hours that it takes to handle unhanded reports?
• Time that it takes to reply to a staff message from a member? Extend this to the time that it takes to solve the issue/problem that the user lifted?
• Number of active discussions/threads being generated per day?
• Number of replies to threads so that one can understand how each thread is evolving and if it could be derailing in some point (this is a shi**y KPI I think)

Again, if I was a moderator of a forum, I would base the decision to add a new member if I though that the KPI's that I and my team had established for it weren't being satisfied - which would have a direct impact on the well-being of the community. I think that an interesting question would be : What do the moderators/staff feel? I think that we often have so much discussions about everything, that we often may overlook (not on purpose of course) the "burden" that they must feel from time to time regarding the effort that it takes to run this forum. It's a similar feeling to being a merit source I believe - one has the power/responsibility to distribute merits to good threads / replies but I don't think it's an easy task. What I do believe is that the actual constant search for those same threads/replies can also be exhaustive - on one hand we have the amount of merits to distribute, but on the other we can't simply give them blindly - that's why I also think being a merit source isn't all lights and whistles. I've had at least a conversation about this with a merit source that feels like this, but I believe he/she isn't the only one.

So yeah, jumping back to my conclusion, I think it would be interesting to have a feeling of what the staff feels. Like having a "State of Affairs bitcointalk 2021" - nothing too fancy, just an overall of how the community has grew in the past year, the challenges that were faced and so on.

[suchmoon]

Would it be better to get a moderator for the Politics & Society sub forum instead?

This was already suggested not too long ago and as far as I know it did not get any response from theymos so I'm assuming that's not an option.

To be fair, P&S is an exceptionally shitty shithole even by Bitcointalk standards, so (1) finding someone willing to spend time there wouldn't be easy and (2) a person with sound judgement would be smeared relentlessly by copypasta lemmings there and in Meta too.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I can't help but think that, with the exception of dealing with giveaways, moderation is loosening to the point where it is encouraging a new wave of spammers on the forum.

I'm not so sure the old wave ever left--for good, that is.  There's always been a baseline level of crap posting being done by various members of the forum, covering most sections (with the exception of perhaps Mining, Ivory Tower, and Serious Discussion).  Also, I haven't really detected an increase in shitposts, but I'm not saying you're wrong.  I've got a lot of sections on ignore, so I could be missing a wave of spam if it's happening....but I guess that's the point of having those sections on ignore, so it's a win for me if true.

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

Neither one of those members are "new blood" and I don't think OP would consider them what he's looking for.  Nor do I know how good a job hilariousandco and mprep are doing as global mods, since I don't know how to determine that.  I haven't seen the former make as many posts as he used to, that's for sure.  And as far as mprep goes, I never did see many of his posts at all--but that doesn't mean he or any other global mod isn't doing their job.

I'm mostly clicking "Ignore" instead of "Report to moderator" these days. Makes everything 100% "Good". Doesn't leave much to read though.

Yeah, but you can still see when those members post, and that's still a scrolling hassle sometimes.  I still like to report shitposters just to fuck with 'em and perhaps get their posts deleted, though I don't know how often that really happens.

<snip>

I'm at my 50 merit/month limit with you, else I would have gladly merited that post.  I don't know when that limit expires, but I'll resume giving you merits as soon as it is.

[Upgrade00]

This would likely just go down as another suggestion that the admins would not take any action on. Granted, there are quite a number of boards and sections on the forum that would do well with more moderation to try and salvage them. As @Pharmarcist pointed out, there has been no particular change in the level of spam on the forum over the years.

Theymos has opened threads about needing new mods for a particular board when the need arises, so he possibly has not seen the need for a global mod as yet or anyone willing and able to fill that position.

[Findingnemo]

Probably we can see someone new if the existing moderators and global mods can't handle the number of reports are getting generated so they don't have time to handle all of them but until now there is no such thing happened even I remember that theymos mentioned that he is not interested to hire anymore staff for this forum a long way back.

[PrimeNumber7]

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

You have alledged that I am "Quicksy" (without evidence), so I will respond here...

If I were to become a moderator of the P&S sub, I would not moderate as Twitter does, but rather would moderate as a neutral party "down the middle". I would continue to express my opinion but would encourage everyone, regardless of their opinion to post their opinions and encourage everyone to have a well-reasoned debate with those they disagree with. I would split topics as they go off topic, would remind people to remain on-topic, and would make well-reasoned counterpoints when someone makes an argument I disagre with, in order to allow for others to debate

In sum, I would do what I can in order to make P&S great again!

[Igebotz]

The more you log in, the less you see the forum moderators, and the more you read about them, the less you comprehend.

I'm not saying I'd do a better job than them, and for the most part, I think they both do a good job, but we need some fresh blood in the moderation department.

You are doing a great job!! more than the few avatars wearing moderators I know^{[ they are extremely active on the games and round board only]},  the likes of @lovemayfamilis @timlord2067 and few others are getting their hands filthy to keep the forum free of spammers and cheats; I'm not sure if the present Mod/staff were as excellent as these people before they were given the role.

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

You have alledged that I am "Quicksy" (without evidence), so I will respond here...

If you are not Quicksy then you are not Quicksy you don't have to feel guilty whenever you come across the name "Quicksy" except something is hanging up!!!

[LoyceV]

If I were to become a moderator of the P&S sub, I would not moderate as Twitter does, but rather would moderate as a neutral party "down the middle".

I'd go full Switzerland on the board, but I don't want to waste my time reading political discussions.

[Poker Player]

A new global mod wouldn't be such a bad idea as they could pick up slack in other areas without a moderator, like P&S. I really can't think of a downside to adding new blood to the administration... things seem a bit stale up there.

I am pretty sure I've reported posts in the P&S board and have been dealt with. The only thing is, I am quite lenient when reporting, so if I report some post it is because it is a huge nonsense crap, not because it expresses some weird idea.

I'm not sure I like your idea of a specific moderator for P&S. To me there is an essential difference between what you call spammers in P&S and in other parts of the forum like Bitcoin Discussion or the Gambling Section. BaDecker-like forum members and others who write outlandish posts on P&S are not doing it to make money from signature campaings.  They write those posts because they really believe in it no matter how odd it may seem to a rational mind.

I understand that if moderation is not harsher in that section it is out of respect for the freedom of speech that exists on this forum. As I say I'm pretty sure I've reported posts there that have been deleted, which I can't verify because I haven't reached 300 reports.

I would be concerned that posts in that section would start getting deleted because they are considered conspiratorial, as is happening especially in social media.

There was a time when if you believed that the invasion and war in Iraq was for oil instead of WMD you were a conspiracist. The same if you thought that COVID had come out of a laboratory in Wuhan...

Whoever supports censorship because it suits his political ideas should not complain tomorrow if they censor him too.

[dkbit98]

Maybe we do need some fresh moderator blood and not only global mods but some new local moderators would also be a good addition to have.
Croatian local board is asking for new Local moderator for years, after theymos himself asked us to propose someone to replace the old moderator.
Here is the topic we started in 2020 and we are still waiting for answer [Request] Theymos we need moderator again in Croatian local board.

I'm mostly clicking "Ignore" instead of "Report to moderator" these days. Makes everything 100% "Good". Doesn't leave much to read though.

I am doing the same thing and my Ignore list is getting bigger every day.

[Halab]

if the existing moderators and global mods can't handle the number of reports are getting generated

At the moment, the number of unhandled reports is at an all time low, so don't expect much change there (but a surprise is always possible).

[tranthidung]

A new global mod wouldn't be such a bad idea as they could pick up slack in other areas without a moderator, like P&S. I really can't think of a downside to adding new blood to the administration... things seem a bit stale up there.

A new moderator is asked many times for P&S, Beginners & Help boards and there is no new specific moderator for that board. Some other moderators co-moderate that board as well as other boards even they are not global moderators.

Adding new global moderators are only neccessary if theymos sees the forum need new ones to support current three global moderators. If current global moderators are not overloaded, and can complete their assigned works well, I don't think theymos will consider a new one.

I don't want to waste my time reading political discussions.

Ethnics, religion and politics are areas that hard to discuss and find consensus. I saw good friends become conflict with each other and almost keep distant with each other just because of difference in politics.

[suchmoon]

You have alledged that I am "Quicksy" (without evidence), so I will respond here...

There is plenty of evidence. You are not supposed to like it, but you can't just wish it out of existence.

If I were to become a moderator of the P&S sub, I would not moderate as Twitter does, but rather would moderate as a neutral party "down the middle". I would continue to express my opinion but would encourage everyone, regardless of their opinion to post their opinions and encourage everyone to have a well-reasoned debate with those they disagree with. I would split topics as they go off topic, would remind people to remain on-topic, and would make well-reasoned counterpoints when someone makes an argument I disagre with, in order to allow for others to debate

You're misusing the trust system against users for expressing opinions different from yours. I don't think you would have any qualms about misusing a moderator's position.

	Cnut237		2020-08-31		Reference		Repeating left-wing propiganda. Take anything this person says with a grain of salt.
	Juggy777		2020-08-31		Reference		Repeating left-wing propiganda, take anything this person says with a grain of salt

[Poker Player]

If I were to become a moderator of the P&S sub, I would not moderate as Twitter does, but rather would moderate as a neutral party "down the middle". I would continue to express my opinion but would encourage everyone, regardless of their opinion to post their opinions and encourage everyone to have a well-reasoned debate with those they disagree with. I would split topics as they go off topic, would remind people to remain on-topic, and would make well-reasoned counterpoints when someone makes an argument I disagre with, in order to allow for others to debate

You're misusing the trust system against users for expressing opinions different from yours. I don't think you would have any qualms about misusing a moderator's position.

	Cnut237		2020-08-31		Reference		Repeating left-wing propiganda. Take anything this person says with a grain of salt.
	Juggy777		2020-08-31		Reference		Repeating left-wing propiganda, take anything this person says with a grain of salt

Once again, and in view of what he says, I will agree with suchmoon, and PrimeNumber7 will not be able to say that I repeat left-wing propaganda.

The problem is that we all like to think we are more objective and unbiased than we are.

Leaving that feedback to Cnut237 is anything you want but unbiased, PrimeNumber7. I with Cnut237 usually have differing opinions, after debating sometimes we come to common ground and sometimes we don't. Precisely on the issue of structural racism I disagree with him. For me it is much less than what is painted, but to say that he simply repeats left-wing propaganda when Cnut237 is a person who always defends with detailed arguments what he says is completely misrepresentative. With that background, I don't trust you to do a good job as a moderator.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think what we actually need are some hard rules for how much you can spam before you are banned.

I have dozens, even hundreds, of good reports against some users. I've reported users stating as such and pleading for a ban. I've opened threads in Meta about obvious bot accounts from crypto news site which spam the Press board constantly, pleading for a ban. I've opened threads in Meta about accounts which post literally the same posts every week, deleting them and reposting them each week to max out bounty/sig rewards with zero effort, pleading for a ban. It never happens. I recently discovered one of these accounts which was kicked from its sig campaign for this behavior had happily enrolled in a new one.

Why should I continue to waste hours of my time, which is far more valuable than that of a chronic spammer's, continuing to report these users, when they receive literally zero punishment?

I would propose that if in the space of 30 days (rolling) you have more than 10 posts deleted for spam, then you automatically receive a one week ban. This increases to 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, permaban, on subsequent offenses. (Replace numbers as you see fit.) Every signature campaign that has a member banned for spamming receives a negative point, and after x number of negative points that signature campaign is booted from the forum.

How many senior members even venture in to Bitcoin Discussion anymore? I know several that have that entire board on ignore it is such a spamfest. I could sit on that board 18 hours a day doing nothing but reporting spam and not even make a dent, because we take literally zero action against the spammers or the campaigns which pay them.

[suchmoon]

At the moment, the number of unhandled reports is at an all time low, so don't expect much change there (but a surprise is always possible).

The number might be misleading. It looks like quite a few users have given up on reporting. And I can't blame them, if it takes 100s of reports to ban clearly malicious spammers. It's an unwinnable fight.

Also where are the damn reporter badges?!?

[Lucius]

I would propose that if in the space of 30 days (rolling) you have more than 10 posts deleted for spam, then you automatically receive a one week ban. This increases to 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, permaban, on subsequent offenses. (Replace numbers as you see fit.)

I totally agree with the suggestion, it would really send a clear message to those who are on the forum just to make money without caring about anything else. I don't know what is the reason for such a mild forum policy towards spammers, is this about some human freedoms or is it a matter of the staff not being able to implement such rules in practice because there are too few of them?

Why should I continue to waste hours of my time, which is far more valuable than that of a chronic spammer's, continuing to report these users, when they receive literally zero punishment?

Maybe it’s a matter of who moderates the posts, because I have pretty good experiences with the ones I reported for spam. I have been following three profiles (1, 2, 3) that spam one-line posts for a long time, and since 5 days ago I see that all three are inactive - BPIP does not show a ban, but it is possible that it is a temp ban. I know these things are time-consuming, but it makes more sense to me to sacrifice a few minutes of time each day than to ignore everything.