How about members getting voted off?

[Shifty Geezer]

One of the key problems with moderation is choosing who needs to be removed on account of signal:noise. Behaviour violations are easy to manage, but sometimes there are posters who aren't doing anything wrong, but they aren't right for B3D.

I've just seen another post from a long-time member asking why one relatively new user is still present on B3D, and I see nAo is in agreement with his post.

There are clearly preferred members, many of whom aren't as active as they used to be, who we'd rather have seeing B3D as an appealing community than any ordinary Joe wanting to hang out here. How about we extend to these preferred members the power to vote users off, and with enough votes, such persons are evicted on grounds that the most valuable contributors deem them too disruptive to keep? These powers could be extended to an account level that could be given only to those selected (not necessarily just the longest time as members), and there could be no outward sign that a user has this privilege. The selected user would just be told they have the option to vote for someone's removal, and when there are enough independent votes recorded in the system, the person could be removed.

This would allow the B3D community to have a little better control on the quality of contributors and keep noise out while the community is shielded from the influence of the moderators' own preferences who may individually feel a person is worth removing that the board at large is in favour of keeping.

tl;dr : If someone like fafalada or Sebbbi or nAo or DeanoC etc. thinks a user is just generating noise and makes technical discussion frustrating, I'd prefer that user gets removed rather than faf/Sebbbi/nAo/DeanoC choosing to be inactive to avoid the low-brow responses.

Is this is a good idea? Is it technically feasible?

 

[manux]

I like this idea. If not for whole forum but at last for specific technical threads. Should allow technical threads to stay technical. Try to keep biases out as much as possible. Of course there always is some bias but at least we could try to minimize that and discuss on technical merits. I like quality over quantity.

DLSS or Ray Tracing could be good examples. It's possible to discuss their merits, past, present and future on technical side or bring in the bias and say I just like xyz approach or out right "I hate neural networks no matter what the result is", gimme hand coded algorithms. There it would be beneficial to have separate threads for technical discussion and personal preference discussion.

Those who are here to just argue on "because I like X, Y sucks, or because I strongly thought so but had actually no clue" could have x versus y threads that is more free for all. Those who don't like that stuff can then stay out of it and discuss on less noisy technical threads.

edit. If we had good technical threads like we used to long time ago I would donate. Currently I feel donating is not worth it because there is very little good content and a ton of noise/opinions. Mostly the good technical content I find is in twitter threads and youtube.

 

[orangpelupa]

Dunno it's a good idea or not (I do like the idea of reducing the noise, including my noise). Or how granular it should be (maybe minimize their post, then mods is notified to decide to remove post or not. Maybe even remove all posts from user X in a thread. Or maybe other kinds of granularity).

technically, IIRC there are post voting add on in vb. Limit only those specific users to be able to vote (probably by putting them into a group).

To automatically remove the user, IIRC there's an add on for vb intended for marketplace /buy-sell forum that could do that.

A seller (user) get enough bad votes, user removed.

Sorry I don't remember the specific add on names and whether those are available in xenforo. Those were from memory when I was a developer / moderator / editor on a vb forum a long time ago.


Edit
Maybe this add-on? https://www.themehouse.com/xenforo/2/addons/qaforums but with the voting only visible to certain users.

Dunno it will hide the donvoted post or not tho.

Edit : yes it does

Hide posts if the votes fall below a specified threshold

I don't think it can hide all post from the same user on a thread tho. So need to vote each post....

 

[Malo]

I think it's an idea worth exploring more. As you mentioned, there should be no outward sign the member has the power to vote, that's critical here IMO. I assume they'd have access to some private forum where a thread would be created with a poll detailing the reason for the vote on the removal. Or would it be done in private conversations? I guess the hows aren't important though.

There might be a difference of opinion on what could be considered "noise" as well, what really qualifies as that kind of disruptive content or what possibly falls into the realm of "consistently annoying to me but possibly not a lot of others". But that's up to the powers that be to decide

My only question would be, why don't the staff make those decisions now?

 

[manux]

What I'm really waiting for is someone to figure out algorithm to parse through threads. Thread can be a bbs thread, twitter comments, youtube comments, amazon reviews,... Then analyze the different POV's and create summarization of arguments. Then allow sorting/searching summarizations via different rules like reputation, most often raised POV etc.

Would be amazing as one would avoid reading and repeating arguments. Also would allow easily contributing more details to specific argument adding depth instead of reiterating already stated argument. Also would be awesome for celebrities/podcasters to get summarization of fan/listener feedback/questions and action on it. Would also allow hiding (stupidly) negative things which probably is one big reason for many people ignoring comments completely.

If someone makes such algorithm and makes it work great that is a billion dollar idea We probably have good amount of applicable work already done which would make it feasible to at least prototype this kind of idea. BERT is probably good starting point. If I had to bet then google, twitter, facebook, alibaba,... probably already do/prototype something like this but it's not exposed to end users.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think it's an idea worth exploring more. As you mentioned, there should be no outward sign the member has the power to vote, that's critical here IMO. I assume they'd have access to some private forum where a thread would be created with a poll detailing the reason for the vote on the removal. Or would it be done in private conversations? I guess the hows aren't important though.

I'm thinking just an automated system. Those enabled members will cast their black ball. When there's enough, the poster is removed. Without any discussion between them, there's no influence or arguments and just personal view, so when several of our entrusted users independently agree that someone should go, we can take it on faith that they all had good reasons.

There might be a difference of opinion on what could be considered "noise" as well, what really qualifies as that kind of disruptive content or what possibly falls into the realm of "consistently annoying to me but possibly not a lot of others". But that's up to the powers that be to decide

Indeed. However, without discussion, it'll be down to the voters to decide, and I'm thinking the engineering types are only interested in whittling out the dumb.

My only question would be, why don't the staff make those decisions now?

There aren't enough of us active to make voting meaningful. It's basically down to a personal opinion. There have been a couple of clear, obvious removals that have benefited the board, but they've taken a long time coming while the user disrupted conversations until over time, it was deemed their expulsion beneficial. As it stands now, there are members some staff want to axe and others think they should stay, and others without an opinion. Having a secret select committee able to do the content filtering would be fairer and more efficient IMO.

We could have a two strike rule as well (ignoring the implementation issues here!). Someone could be black balled and told they have been given a one month exodus because the community felt their contributions weren't appropriate for the board. That'll give them the choice to either adapt or leave prior to second black-balling. And without any idea who voted them off, they couldn't blame or argue with anyone.

 

[iroboto]

At first thought it sounds good. But the board may be scared at discussing things they aren’t knowledgeable with in case of the feeling they are black balled.

you will reduce noise, but you may reduce discussion entirely. Not a terrible thing I could really use to not have to keep checking the new post tab because everyone is posting slower.

If the goal is to niche B3D towards achievement in technical discussion as it were before (since the move to twitter for devs) I think it's going to require a complete removal of most of us.

Frankly speaking.

But if you want developers to come back to B3D and put in their 2 cents there and there.
I suggest making a Developer vetting system; and make a developer only forum that they can speak to each other anonymously. Take the twitter discussion over here without having to deal with trolls and fanboys on twitter for instance.

And every once in a while when they venture out into noob land, they can offer up some scraps.

 

[AlNom]

Thread reply ban is probably the way to go.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I doubt it. I doubt those selected would be keen to axe people. If you go back a few years when the key members were most active, there was lots of naive discussion (from me too, saying some very dumb things at the time!) and they were happy to contribute their insights. Black balling would be for those who keep pushing things they don't know, repeat the same points ad nauseum, and generally aren't contributing in a positive way. Those who ask, suggest, get wrong, learn, would, I expect, be welcome to continue posting.

I only expect a rare few people to be pitched too. Although maybe the members I think should be given the power hate the lot of us?

 

[iroboto]

I doubt it. I doubt those selected would be keen to axe people. If you go back a few years when the key members were most active, there was lots of naive discussion (from me too, saying some very dumb things at the time!) and they were happy to contribute their insights. Black balling would be for those who keep pushing things they don't know, repeat the same points ad nauseum, and generally aren't contributing in a positive way. Those who ask, suggest, get wrong, learn, would, I expect, be welcome to continue posting.

I only expect a rare few people to be pitched too. Although maybe the members I think should be given the power hate the lot of us?

who are we competing with (forum wise) gamedev.net?
I'm just curious what type of discussion we are trying to curate here at B3D.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Also, I'm not sure if preferred members would want these decisions based on their personal position. For example, @nAo acknowledged this post with his up vote even though there are a few noisy posts in the vicinity. While it might be questionable whether noisy posts offer value I think in this context they encouraged a response from @nAo regarding his position.

 

[BRiT]

The community should be able to self-police, yet they rarely do. I have not seen a single post Reported in the PC section in ages. So going by that, the moderators who are less involved in that section have to assume everything is going well, since no one has said otherwise. The reports can't simply be "he's wrong", but more as to why the user's posts are a detriment to the discussion.

Thread reply ban is probably the way to go.

I would use temp reply-bans with a pointedly worded reason why to try to get through to the person as to how they should change their behavior.

 

[digitalwanderer]

If you want to get rid of me you just have to ask, no need to go to all the trouble.

 

[Rootax]

Hello,

I've no value on this forum, I only give my opinions, or asks questions, in a few threads, for years. And, only one guy is pissing me off right now. It's not a lot, I would even say it's great. And some people take the time to respond to him with a cool head and expose him. In that way, the community here is great. I understand wanting to get rid of some accounts, but this way is a slippery slope imo. It can lead to new people not talking, because they're afraid of being wrong and ban, or something like that. I know it's not the goal, and I guess it's more oriented at trolls / semi-trolls, but it can deviate pretty quickly...

"If someone like fafalada or Sebbbi or nAo or DeanoC etc. thinks a user is just generating noise and makes technical discussion frustrating, I'd prefer that user gets removed rather than faf/Sebbbi/nAo/DeanoC choosing to be inactive to avoid the low-brow responses." => I agree with that, but at the same time, ignoring them should be equally effective for 90% of cases.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I think I'm leaning with BRiT and Rootax a bit. Giving people the ability to just kick out members wouldn't be bad since we all know the people making the decisions, but to outsiders it'd look all arbitrary and "nazi-ist".

I've found the best way to handle those people is to politely tell them why there posts are distracting rather than helping and ask them to try to post more responsibly/better, or else call 'em out publicly as an asshat and deal with them that way. It goes on a case by case basis as well as my mood. If people find out they aren't welcomed/liked somewhere they generally leave, unless they go psycho-troll but that leads to its own form of entertainment that inevitably ends up in a ban after half the forum body slams 'em .LOL

I understand your aggravation Shifty, but I think if any of those members you mentioned had a problem with someone they'd just contact a mod/admin and ask 'em to look in to it or ban them. I know I've done that before and it works well and I feel it's part of my obligation to the site. If I see a problem I either deal with it or report it.

I keep forgetting I'm a not a mod/super-mod/admin here or on most forums and just act like one anyways. For all the time I've spent in those positions the only time I really used the powers that come with them was to clean up and ban spambots, most members issues were stuff I'd deal with by communicating so I technically have about the same power I always have.

 

[iroboto]

I don't often venture into the PC side of the forum, but perhaps the most basic step is to encourage people to use the features on the site as a first step before we move into greater actions. So promoting reporting and blocking should be the first initial step if we aren't getting reasonable usage out of these functions. As well we should encourage others to do the same in all parts of the forum. Just direct them to a page that shows them 'hey, we have these buttons for these purposes".

I think that would be a reasonable starting point.

 

[iroboto]

I think this thread alone will halt posting. haha. curious to see metrics on this site pre-post this thread

 

[Deleted member 2197]

I don't often venture into the PC side of the forum, but perhaps the most basic step is to encourage people to use the features on the site as a first step before we move into greater actions.

I agree on the basic step approach. If the report feature is used do all moderators receive the notice? What to do when disruptive posts are up voted by moderators?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree on the basic step approach. If the report feature is used do all moderators receive the notice? What to do when disruptive posts are up voted by moderators?

Yes, but there's effectively only three of us in operation. Hence it's largely one opinion versus another. We've had discussions where we disagree how to moderate a person, and without more contributions, it'll either boil down to we all get to kick off whoever we don't like, or we don't kick anyone off. And in the latter case, you then get people saying, "I can't understand why this guy is still allowed to post here. B3D's really going downhill."

Hence, IMHO, if there are key posters of the mind, "yeah, why is that guy allowed to post here?" then those persons can be dealt with. Again, it's really not many people. I think there have been two or three over the years, but they're real annoyances and the board instantly heaved a huge sigh of relief when they disappeared. One of the most toxic, if people remember, was the guy messing up the realtime raytracing discussion. As mods, it was a long time before it was felt he had to go, but the moment he went, the discussion calmed down to actual tech talk. He behaved politely and didn't really break rules, but he trashed the conversation.

And that's the spur of this idea. When I see a post froma long standing member saying, "why is this gut allowed to post here?" and people like nAo liking that post, I'm wondering if they shouldn't be mildly empowered to sort out the board population.

 

[eloic]

I'm ok with this as long as you don't kick me out.

Seriously, I know it can seem ugly, but... I think I'm ok with trying to find a way so that B3D stays focused on a technical discussion (regardless of a marginal, fair amount of non-technical shit we can talk about now and then, of course ).