We did do the second option before, back when it was decided we needed mods specifically for OTC about ten years ago. There was a crowner, people could put names up for consideration, they were voted up or down while others discussed their merits. And yeah, there was concerns over it being a popularity contest, but the two Tropers who eventually emerged as the easy leaders were both respected and level headed members of the site. One sadly stopped being an active member about a year later, but the other moderated for a good while after.
While I’m not the biggest fan of making it an electoral system I feel I should explain the system a zetabord forum I used to moderate used.
A mod vacancy would be announced and anyone interested would put nominate themselves and then make a statement that explained a bit about themselves (basically a combined CV/application). The mod team would review all the statements and decide who (if anyone) was viable to be a mod. That shortlist of people (which carried in size depending on the number of vacancies and number of viable applicants) would then be voted on by the membership.
It was however tied to the fact that we had an especially large team with a thematic number of mods.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI am not keen on folks applying. I think such a process draws in people who want to play cop/want a badge to wear, to a problematic degree.
I believe that the OTC and Roleplay votes were done under the understanding that these folks would only works in specific areas of the site, areas that moreover don't concern the wiki which is the most important part of TV Tropes. Conversely, when we had people vote on 5P candidates several years back, the staff had pre-vetted the candidates.
As I've said in another thread, I am very much opposed to any kind of public commentary on candidates as it'll invariably descend into dickery (as the Wikipedia process does). A lot of people are either tactless or outright inpolite when making critiques of other people.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
And I can see that thumping a moderator nomination thread (for comments of this sort that would absolutely get thumped elsewhere) may bring its own problems and aggravate things.
I'm not a huge fan of nominations and elections for this sort of role, as I think they get a bit pseudo-political, often in problematic ways.
That said, I think moderators do need the confidence and support of the tropers - at least if they want to do the job with a minimum of pushback and concerns about 'agendas' - and some sort of pre-appointment conversation thread could help with that.
My one concern about appointment rather than nomination is that (as in any organisation) it can lead to "more of the same" - the people who look most promising to the current mods may be the people who seem most like the current mods. That's not necessarily a problem, but it's something to be aware of in terms of mod culture/approach and potential blindspots.
My unsolicited idea:
- Mod nominations can only be done by those not associated with the nominee to a large extent (eg a regular of the complete monster cleanup thread, or a number of yack fest threads cannot nominate another regular, nor can they nominate themselves) in order to minimize the chance of cliques pushing through their own mod choices. This is important because of the problems cliques have caused in the past. Having a mod they think they can influence smells like trouble to me.
- Before a nomination is presented to the tropers, the mods do a check of their history (bans, problems on the forum or wiki, etc.)
- A forum thread for each nominee will be created where the nominee accepts or rejects the nomination and can be asked questions that they must answer as well as a broader review of their record by the base (if there are certain incidents or red flags that the mods missed or were unaware of, they could be mentioned here). Said thread should be aggressively moderated with thumps for any off topic behavior or dickish aspersions, and bans for personal attacks. How long this period should be, I don't know.
- While the tropers can offer considerable input and recommend if x would be a good mod or not, the final decision would come down to the existing mods themselves.
- Obviously, the rate of public mod nom discussions should be restricted, to give people time to consider the candidate. Maybe one or two a month tops.
Public commentary should absolutely be allowed in some form. Concerns it will "descend into dickery" can be dealt with under the rules here. If someone can't participate politely the shoudln't be allowed to participate in the process.
The current process that's just "the mods pick someone in secret and then announce it" is pretty flawed and needs to be altered.
Why do you feel the commentary needs to be done publicly? I agree that commentary/input from users is a requirement, but why have it be posted in the open forum where people can argue about it and people might feel to intimidated to provide honest thoughts? A confidential way to raise issues strikes me as better.
I’d much rather a “PM thoughts to [mod running the process] and they will share them with the rest of the mod team” approach. With the mod team collectively providing a public response to any raised issues should a person be made a mod who has had issues raised about them.
It also means that if the mod who gets the P Ms anonymises raised issues, then people won’t fear retaliation, as the new mod wouldn’t even know who raised objections to them.
Generally I remain opposed to community appointment, I feel we are to large a site for that. I’d rather we have a way for the community to provide input to a mod team made decision.
Edited by Silasw on Jan 6th 2023 at 11:06:05 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranYeah, if someone has reservations about a potential mod involving stuff like them potentially holding grudges against people who disagree with them or abusing mod powers to help their friends, I'd definitely not feel comfortable airing those in a public thread, because if the potential mod gets elevated I've just painted a giant target on my back.
The privacy thing is why I suggested a "voting box" that goes to an off-site email. It'll be much more anonymous and people won't need to worry about bringing their thoughts directly to the mods / posting them publicly on a thread.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThe only off-site email we have (for mods) is the one people use to send messages to us via the contact form here
that some of us have access to. It's mainly used for account issues, bounce appeals, and the few queries that don't go elsewhere.
Right. My idea's not a serious suggestion, moreso a spitball, because while I think it could work I'm also not super sure.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI personally find it more concerning if someone instead of using in-site private methods, used a secondary (or autogenerated) email to personally message the staff's shared email to complain about a mod.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupI like the idea of a PM(no public) information people can give on another user just to be safe.
But I don't want a popularity contest to begin with. There's too much bias in that front to make it work well. While bias is inherent, the important part is that it's specific to what makes a good Moderator to the actual people who work with the site in some way far more directly. They know details we don't. Thus, I don't think the public should be in on it in that way. Remember, we aren't just looking for a popular guy or pure professionalism alone, but those who actually know the rules quite well, and tons of users don't fit this category.
Now the idea that a Moderator's plausibility is announced? I'm okay with that. This means users will be able to make sure the Moderation doesn't miss problematic content. This can happen easily. Though see my first line on why the best way to handle it is purely private.
Shadow?Even just a public list of candidates could be helpful. Users don't necessarily need to have a vote in order to see that the mods are considering someone they have concerns over, and it would enforce good behavior out of the people on the list, as the community will know they're potential mods (not that I'm suggesting everyone be micromanaged and in fear, but that having their names on the list will ensure people try and act the part, lest the community calls them out).
Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 6th 2023 at 7:16:41 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallAs someone who is an admin on other websites/wikis. I can see where Septimus is coming from on this. Openly stating that people can apply for admin/modship can often attract people who want to be mods as a power trip, ego boost, or basically some kind of bad motive like that that will attract people who aren't going to be positive for the community.
There have been cases where it has been positive but I have also witnessed cases where it had caused some truly terrible mods to be put up and cause a ton of damage to the community before they are demoted. I have unfortunately made this mistake in the past before where I promoted someone who actively wanted to be a mod and they later turned out to be a really awful person and user. Now usually even if someone does want to be a mod I am very careful to promote them or advocate for them to be unless I can be sure they are trustworthy.
Considering the issue TVT already has where it is really hard to get a mod demoted I think that the last thing we want is for more bad mods to end up getting promoted.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jan 6th 2023 at 7:44:21 AM
@everyone: Longposting to reply to everyone else because I'll be on a flight in an hour and I haven't responded to this thread since yesterday (and won't be able to respond until tomorrow).
@Silasw: That's how I was elected onto the staff on another forum. We didn't have vacancies, but we did have rolling applications, so you could apply whenever you wanted and the application would be saved until a spot opened up. You'd also (in addition to satisfying the mods) have to be elected with at least a 50% Support vote by the community, and finally the community held re-elections every two years. I served there from 2020 to 2022, then opted not to put my name in again.
Would that system work for this site? Maybe, but really only the first half, in which case the mods would collect applications until they feel it necessary to expand the team and then show the applications to the wider userbase (for community voting or objection). The term limits thing, though... I didn't like it when I was a moderator on that forum (but it was written in the rules, so I didn't really have a choice
) and even I don't want it to be a thing for community election/objection here.
@Parable: I had a feeling it would have come up sometime in the site's history, anyway. Well, good thing there's precedent if we want to try again through the election/objection approach.
@Septimus Heap:
That was one of my concerns on the old forum I mentioned, but the community had already developed a sense of who to vet and the moderator action log was (reasonably) public, so the community could complain (anonymously or otherwise) if the moderators misused their tools.
Well, the solution to that is pretty simple. When the thread is made, create a reply with the rules of discussing nominations, which should also be simple: don't be a dick (obvious) and play the ball, not the person (no personal attacks). There are probably more complicated rules than that, but I haven't thought about them yet.
If someone does break the rules in a nom thread, if it's not thump-worthy but still borderline, quote the rule they broke and reply asking them kindly (or not so kindly) to knock it off. If they do it again, thump them and make a modhat post explaining that a couple of posts were thumped for rudeness/personal attacks/drifting off topic. It doesn't have to be personal or snarky.
Wikipedia handles dickery on RfAs the same way we should on mod noms - give 'em a warning the first time around, then thump them if they continue.
@Mrph1:
Maybe, but if it's made absolutely clear by the thumper (or by any other involved mod) that the thumpee broke the rules against <insert word here> in a nom thread, the community should understand why.
@Acebrock:
Mod nominations can only be done by those not associated with the nominee to a large extent (eg a regular of the complete monster cleanup thread, or a number of yack fest threads cannot nominate another regular, nor can they nominate themselves) in order to minimize the chance of cliques pushing through their own mod choices. This is important because of the problems cliques have caused in the past. Having a mod they think they can influence smells like trouble to me.
Absolutely, and I've had the misfortune of watching the complete devastation that cliques can inflict on this site and on other sites.
Yeah, regarding history checks, that's about what I would expect with other communities. I agree that letting the nominee accept or reject the nomination is important (for what it's worth, I would reject a nomination in the first year). I do, however, question whether nominees should be forced to answer questions, but I see how that can be a pro and con at the same time.
Regarding the period the nom thread remains open, Wikipedia does it for seven days, but of course, We Are Not Wikipedia. I'd say two weeks is a good amount of time to get the input of the community (long enough that anyone who's reasonably active can chime in, but short enough that people won't be bored). At the end of the nom thread, one of the mods can lock it.
I agree.
@Ultimatum: This wouldn't be a popularity contest, though.
And I don't mean to be rude - really, I don't - but in this thread and the previous thread all you've said so far on the subject is
and
then it really would turn into a popularity contest!
Is there anything I or another troper in this thread can offer you that would change your position on our arguments?
I'd much rather a "PM thoughts to [mod running the process] and they will share them with the rest of the mod team" approach. With the mod team collectively providing a public response to any raised issues should a person be made a mod who has had issues raised about them.
It also means that if the mod who gets the PMs anonymises raised issues, then people won’t fear retaliation, as the new mod wouldn’t even know who raised objections to them.
@Silasw: I think that this is a good solution, but I'm also keeping @Lightysnake's point in mind that public commentary is important to creating a good debate.
In any case, we'd need a mod who'd be open to PMs(or we'd need to PM the mod in charge of the nom for that current troper). That, or:
The only off-site email we have (for mods) is the one people use to send messages to us via the contact form here that some of us have access to. It's mainly used for account issues, bounce appeals, and the few queries that don't go elsewhere.
@WarJay77 and @MacronNotes: Agreed (with both of them). I do, however, wonder if the mods can set up an additional burner email not connected to the tvtropes.org domain - something like modnomstvt@gmail.com? It would be a shared account between the mods and they'd be able to check it and receive any complaints sent forward from users.
@everyone else: I haven't overlooked you, just got a bit tired writing this long post.
In my mind the idea that would be for the concerns to be discussed amongst the mod team and with the nominee, but the identity of the person raising the concerns would stay private.
So if for example I was under consideration and you had concerns about my past actions, you might PM them to Septimus to be raised. The mod team would discuss the concerns with me (assuming it wasn’t something obviously disqualifying) and if I have a satisfactory explanation the mod team would at the end make a public post going “The following past actions were highlighted to us but we don’t consider them disqualifying due to the explanation beneath” where they’d note any issues raised and why they are still okay with the person.
Yea it requires us to trust the mod team to maintain internal confidence and stick to the system, but I don’t see a way to make a system that doesn’t require us to trust them.
My concern with public weighing in is that it then becomes a public debate. Which both risks invalidating concerns people have and getting the people involved emotionally charged and angry.
If we get a thread in such a state then it feels inevitable that the line of “don’t be a dick” will be perceived to be crossed and people will end up thumped, but thumps in a mod nomination discussion thread would destroy trust in the process, especially with how low trust in the mod team already is.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranNo, Wikipedia does not dickery on RfA pages the same way as we do. They have a tolerance for tactless and jerky statements - especially on these pages - that is way too lenient by the standards of TV Tropes.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

In the matter of community appointment of moderators
(Before anyone accuses me of the title being too confusing, I gave this thread the most neutral title I could.)
So on the discussions about moderation thread
, me, Amonimus, WarJay, Irene, AlleyOop, Ultimatum, and a couple of other people (sorry, I can't name everyone :() were talking about community elections to moderator positions before Macron pointed out
that the Wiki Talk forum was a better place to ask about it. So I'm starting a thread now.
The general gist of our discussion was this: what if the community elected moderators? We all had different ways of how the community election would work out, but they generally boiled down to two options:
Option 1: Moderators announce that a troper is being promoted to the staff level, and members are given a good reason to object (and to provide oversight).
This was Amon's idea.*Yes, the candidate can (in this idea), and should, be allowed to object to their own promotion - and if they do object, I believe that the mods should seriously consider not promoting them.
Option 2: People from the community nominate themselves, or are nominated by someone else, questioned by the community, and voted on. Once they reach a certain amount of support, the nomination concludes (and the admins later make them moderators on that regard.)
This was my ideaX says they want to be a mod, and announces this, making a new thread in a forum (which will probably be Wiki Talk.)
The community asks X questions regarding their potential modship, how they are willing to resolve issues, and if there are any things that they regret. Each member of the community has a certain amount of questions. It's not a speech.
Throughout the questioning (and before or after), members of the community may vote to accept (Yes), oppose (No) or remain neutral as to the nomination based on the person's track record/forum posts/wiki edits/whatever. The person is never forced to answer questions.
At the end of the voting period (which is seven days on Wikipedia), a person will look over the thread/voting thing and approve the new person as moderator (or not depending on their support).
Both of these approaches have pros and cons, but the biggest con to both of them is the lack of higher management. While the mods are helpful to respond to any issues we have, they can't make other people mods - that requires direct admin intervention - and the admins haven't really shown up on the forum at all these past few years, although one of them was active as recent as January 2021.
So if we are going to take the community election/objection process seriously, we'll have to start by seeing if the admins will be more active (or not). Otherwise, the plan is dead in the water before it even begins. I do think, however, that this is a serious proposal that could have some major benefits to community engagement (and oversight).
I'll end off with one of my personal anecdotes, and a major supporting point as to community leadership:
tl;dr - Proposals for the community electing mods or agreeing on their appointment by the admins. Let's discuss it.