Hiring mods?

Personally Brain, I think you'd be a good mod, though people seem to think the same of me and I've already explained why I'm uncomfortable with the idea, so I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want the position.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, but Brainulator9's behavior does not make him trustworthy for me. His replies on this page and here paint a fairly nonchalant attitude towards important matters in terms of wiki growth and search engine popularity, and the one page I asked to clean that time was very short and likely easy to do. The fact that he's been a constructive Wikipedia editor for over a decade (I normally don't give a crap about other net activity as I have problems with me and my own personality, but supporting The Other Wiki to this day raises slight loyalty concerns, plus it would eat up time for him if he did end up becoming a moderator). Also, that ping to Lu 127 felt unneeded and rude, didn't you see that she said that getting the message from Eddie scared here, plus it would probably be ultimately unnecessary. Again, I apologise if this is harsh, but IMO, the main traits a mod should have should be being hardworking for the wiki and kind to most users.

I'm not willing to be a mod. My first year or two on TVT are not something I'm that proud of (in fact, I'm pretty much always not proud of what I've done in CURRENTYEAR-2 because that's just how I am). I am also fairly lazy, immature, and sometimes lack influence. Maybe once I actually get a better job, I'll feel it'd be more worth it.

It's sad that War Jay 77 doesn't want mod tools as she's one of the most hardworking yet friendly users here, but I suppose it's her choice.

For ACW, he definitely should get tools, he does so much work for the CW thread and stays cool from what I can tell, even if I don't participate there. Even if he won't get single tools, he's still a strong candidate for moderation.

As for another candidate, how about ~MaLady (this ping is probably fine)? While he may lack confidence sometimes, he's good, hard working for the wiki, and would likely be willing to do grunt work for the locked pages or wick cleanup, for instance.

Edited by Piterpicher on May 20th 2020 at 9:39:51 PM

You realize we aren't like, at war with Wikipedia, right? I don't see how "regularly edits Wikipedia" is some sort of black mark against Brainulator. I also wouldn't say it's rude to ping someone to say hello, either

Okay, I was going to say “that’s a little much considering we don’t even know yet if promotions or giving users mod tools is on the table”, but then I actually read the post and I’m with , is reaching and frankly kind of rude.

I'd like more users to weigh in on the wiki traffic situation, but I have a few thoughts.

• I apologize for never getting to the page that you asked me to do.
• Septimus Heap is both a moderator on This Very Wiki and an administrator on The Other Wiki as Jo-Jo Eumerus.
• About pinging someone to say hello, since I am not Fast Eddie, there is no need to worry about me being in a position of authority to tell them they're doing something wrong.

Okay, sorry. I might have went a bit too far. I guess that if people feel willing work on both sites, they can, but I dunno (and I did try to explain my stance on loyalty as calmly as possible). As for pinging to say hello, eh, I personally see it as an unnecessary and annoying action (not sure if I'd like to get it myself), and I assumed it was tone-deaf based on that previous post, which made me concerned, but I guess not. And apology for that one page is accepted, I did kinda drop the cleanup too, I just hope something like this doesn't happen again.

I do believe that moderators should be polite and hardworking anyway, I just want to make sure of that. Still, he at least replied maturely and understandably to my concerns, so I have to praise that. I do think there are other mod candidates as well (as explained, not myself).

Edited by Piterpicher on May 20th 2020 at 3:49:11 PM

That's my personal opinion too, mostly because an unexpected message in my tropes inbox usually sends a little lurch of dread to my stomach until I go look to see who it's from and what it says.

I can see how that's an easy conclusion to jump to.

Anyway, if we find enough people who would make great engineers but don't want to and/or can't handle being moderators, I'd say that could probably make a case for bringing back engineers. And of course, if we get new moderators out of this, that would be better.

I think we all really appreciate the volunteering to be engineers, and can understand why people are reluctant to take on moderation-level responsibility.

Indeed. One of the biggest obstacles to a lot of our ideas on how to improve the site is the lack of a body of tropers who can be trusted to handle locking and unlocking, edits to locked pages, hooking and calling crowners, and all the other "maintenance" work that can get very tedious.

The COVID-19 crisis is affecting our advertising revenue and the owners are scrambling to deal with that problem. If/when things return to "normal", we'll hopefully get some resources freed up to implement some of these ideas.

Edited by Fighteer on May 20th 2020 at 2:42:53 PM

Sidestepping the little drama moment I missed, ookay....

Well, Nombre, Fighteer, I do hope these things will be able to become reality. We'd all be more than happy to handle some of the more annoying grunt work tasks if it means you guys have less to worry about and more time to do the more important things (I assume dealing with actual moderation, the cutlist, and Edit/Banned stuff is far more important than "hey can you edit this locked page please", but you've less time to focus on the important stuff if you're so busy with the grunt work).

Like at the end of the day, we can worry about getting new mods another time, when things are less chaotic. Maybe some of the people given engineer powers (if those end up being given) can be promoted, if they do good work and decide they can take on the challenge that comes with more power and tools. Or, maybe we'll just be an army of grunt-work doing engineers forever.

I agree that we may want to wait until the crisis is over, or at the very least, the advertisements are sorted (as I'd hope that maybe the admins will find a way to work on the site remotely). If you guys need bucks, I can downgrade my subscription from Yearly to Monthly, since it won't really hurt me at the moment. Maybe more people should seriously consider the ad-free subscription as well.

As for moderation, I just want to leave this thought - I think that people selected for moderator duty should be at about the same level as the SWAT team described here: "Only the top 1% are even considered, then the competition gets tough." It just seems like how it's been done to this day, and I feel like it has worked to keep a fairly good mod team, though I still believe that a moderator should show hard work, knowledge of the site, and politeness.

As for engineers, I'd welcome the idea. Those can probably be more relaxed, but not too much, maybe at the level of a police division of Homicide (assuming that regular tropers range for foot patrol to traffic). I don't know if I'd be considered eligible for one (I do grunt work sometimes, but mostly work page creation), so while I'm confident that I'm at least in the top 12.5%, I'm unsure of how high the qualifications would be here. Brainulator9 and War Jay 77 would definitely deserve this position, though.

Edited by Piterpicher on May 20th 2020 at 9:51:39 PM

I would say that you, Warjay, and Brain would make great engineers.

I won't be eligible to become a mod, as my availability varies, and it's taking a toll on my art time. Engineer is fine for me in the case of TLP.

I also do think there ought to be engineers in handling suspensions, as there are a lot of pending cases at the Edit Banned thread. I mean, one time, a user, fittingly named "Castaway Pariah", rage quitted because it took too long for their case to be responded. Not sure if some tropers evade their bans because they're impatient and it took too long for their appeals.

Edited by alnair20aug93 on May 23rd 2020 at 3:12:39 AM

While obviously trying to decide if someone gets unbanned or not would be a big overstep of boundaries for an engineer, I could see it being useful if, say, engineers could post to help people know what they did wrong or to inform them of a rule that may have been broken. I'll assume everyone posting here lurks in Edit Banned like I do, and would be able to step in quickly if all that was needed was to say "hey X, you're suspended for Y", especially if it's just something like grammar or editing issues.

Seconded.

I have zero evidence on whether some tropers evade their bans because they're impatient and it took too long for their appeals, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I do lurk in the banned threads, and sometimes I'm glad there's no "post" button for me, because I'm not sure I can trust myself to stay civil if I was an engineer informing people in the banned threads of what rules they broke. However, there's enough work that I do want to do to keep me busy and away from that hypothetical situation, so I don't know how strong an argument this is against giving engineers that privilege.

Assuming we get consensus on defining engineer power and responsibilities, what would it take to petition for coding it? (In addition to what Fighteer said about waiting for the advertising problem to be solved, that is.)

Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 27th 2020 at 8:55:55 AM

The former engineer userright was all about hooking/unhooking and closing crowners, locking threads and changing their titles and marking or unmarking them as "final action". It didn't really involve any ban-related things.

That makes sense, it'd just be kinda nice if it was a possibility- just to be able to post in the thread and help people out while the mods are busy, not to be able to actually ban/release people, obviously.

A dedicated TRS engineer who only unlocked threads and hooked crowners would be a real boon.

Personally, I wouldn't mind being given the permission to lock Trope Finder and You Know That Show queries that mistakenly get posted in Ask The Tropers.

^ Me too.

Speaking of permission, do engineers have the power to unlaunch drafts, or can only mods do that?

That might be too much power; while there's nothing wrong with sending back rogue launched drafts or the like, it's a pretty big power to give someone who's job is just to do grunt work.

The power to unlaunch drafts did not exist at the time engineers did.

Did engineers have access to hollers too back then or was that just a mod thing?

For a short time, normal users could use the "Add / Fix Title" tool in IP and TRS threads. I wouldn't mind having access to that tool again, it was really handy, fixed a lot of mistyped threads while I could.