| Admins: Powers, Persuasions and the like |
Aiight, so HEM brought up a very good point in the other thread regarding admin power and I think it's worth discussing in its own thread. This is something that (in some ways) operates outside the Charter, so I don't think it's nessecary to wait on it.
Some things I'd like us to consider: What, if any, powers do we want the administrators to execute? Who should become admins? How do you want to select admins? How do we want to remove admins? Who should have moderating power? What checks should there be on moderating powers? How many administrators and/or moderators do we need? Now, some of this will play into other government powers, but I trust we can make some decisions on forum administration and adjust as we need to moving forward.
-tsunamy
[forum admin]
(02-07-2016, 02:24 AM)Tsunamy Wrote: What, if any, powers do we want the administrators to execute? The role of an administrator is that of a cleaner, janitor or housekeeper. Occasionally, you throw in a part-time, temporary job as a mechanic if necessary. They should be reactive rather than proactive. So they should have no powers to execute and should only respond and handle requests, situations as required by the Government of the South Pacific - the Executive, the Assembly and the High Court. (Forum moderation and administration should be completely separate from government in absolutely every form. Politics has no place in how spammers, etc are dealt with.) I have no criteria on who is suitable for the administrative team that said: ideally those who are knowledgeable of the board software, and should have prior experience managing and running myBB software in a similar environment. They should be residents of The South Pacific, and should be able to maintain a suitable separation between their role as admin and any roles as a citizen or resident. One of the biggest issues I've heard regarding why the "move" was considered necessary is related to concerns that members of the Administration Team has made us of their forum access to read private and priveleged information which it then used for the benefit of those who read it so I'm going to go a little further and propose something that is now possible because of how GR set this board up in the original move: Using the root account, create a two tier of administrative mask, plus masking to allow access to the respective secure areas: Cabinet, Situation Room (separate), Private Halls of the Assembly, Ministry Offices (separately), High Court Private Chamber and so on. Under the second administrative mask - applied to all administrators aside from the Root account - remove the access for those secure areas and require the extra masks to be added for that access. Leave the default all-access admin mask to the Root account, and heavily restrict access to that account. Assuming this is followed, it will end any accusations of misdoing by the administration. Of course, it relies on the administration not giving themselves access to these areas via the control panel. I am not commenting on the methods to remove administrators. On other boards we do not give the Assembly or government the ability to do so, however in The South Pacific there are, and have been, a lot of questions regarding the behaviour of the Administrative Team as of late. I would generally prefer it is left to the administrative team but I do have concerns that it means nothing will happen even if there is a legitimate complaint. Moderating powers, a slimmed down moderation set can, and should be given to people who need them, i.e. roleplay moderators and cartographers, leading justice and cabinet ministers on top of a global moderator set for delegate and a selective moderator set for vice delegate. As for checks: reroute the handling and discussion of warnings to the Administration Team and open a section for the discussion of reported posts or messages between the administrators and forum moderators. Appeals to rulings can be sent to the administrators. Also in the ACP there is a log of any and all moderation/administration actions amongst other things. Ideally it depends on the workload as to determine the number of administrators you need. It is not a trophy to hold and do nothing with, an administrator is an important role on the forum and they should be prepared to do work. Ideally, an odd number of administrators would work, and I'd also suggest one or two global moderators are added.
Administrators should be handling the basic mechanics of the forum,things like backups, forum structure, IP checking users, basic flag handling and the group we have seems to hold up here well even tho there's no way to verify a backup.
We need a level of moderation where the officers moderate the content of their respective content without the ability to change a user's status. Things like locking, deleting and moving threads. And they should have the ability to delete leaked info into the public, also without fear of retribution. I spent 35 years in IT, starting as a system programmer with complete access to Fortune 100 mainframes, able to see things like payroll data. You stop looking after while when it gets boring, but abuse of that ability would have got me fired in 3 seconds. We're a small forum in the grand schema of things and don't need 5000 admins/mods. The current group and "philosophy" has work for a long time and I don't know that anything more then moderation to officers is needed and at least one of the current mods learns/agrees to keep info he learns to himself. There is NO WAY you can regulate an admin as to what they see or can do, nor can you put "checks" into it. You just have to trust them. Taking the workload off by giving moderation to others eliminates the appearance of admins controlling the game or trying to anyway.
(02-07-2016, 10:03 AM)Lord Ravenclaw Wrote: Using the root account, create a two tier of administrative mask, plus masking to allow access to the respective secure areas: Cabinet, Situation Room (separate), Private Halls of the Assembly, Ministry Offices (separately), High Court Private Chamber and so on. We've already removed access to 'secure areas' in the admin masking, afaik. So I'm not sure creating any kind of 'tiered' system isn't just additional complication. (02-07-2016, 10:03 AM)Lord Ravenclaw Wrote: ...and I'd also suggest one or two global moderators are added. Is this really beneficial over the system we already have in place, where Cabinet members moderator their own areas? I would worry that global mods will just get attacked whenever they moderate a heated discussion in the Assembly, for example. I can definitely see people throwing accusations of it not being their territory, or them shutting down political debate. That's why admins haven't moderated those forums since we moved from IPB.
I disagree that we should add global moderators, because I don't think administrators should be doing any moderation, except when conduct borders on Terms of Service violations (do we have Terms of Service, even?) or real life legal issue. For instance, if a member was accused of honest-to-god harassment or internet stalking, that would be an area I would see admin intervention, for the protection of our community as much as the protection of the victim user. Other than these rare occasions, however, the roleplay government should be handling moderation through relevant officers and the court system.
I also think we do need a removal system in place, and I think we need to look at the issue of admin non-compliance through the lens of being a "mini-coup." Afterall, if an administrator is failing to comply with the civilian government, they are ignoring the laws and order of the coalition in favor of their own.
Formerly Relevant, Currently Former.
Unless the specific case of non-compliance was such that it prevented the regional government from operating under decent conditions, I would not like to call it a coup, mini or otherwise. A coup is not a word that should be used lightly. That is not to say an admin should not be called out for misconduct, but to call any kind of misconduct a coup is not something I would find acceptable.
Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator. I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum. Legal Resources: THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System
When there is a genuine disagreement over the law, the issue should be settled in the court. If complying with the request of a government official could mean violating the Bill of Rights, or similar, then it shouldn't be "do it now, ask questions later" but rather go to the courts. That was a central issue in the forum brouhaha.
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I think we should leave the moderation to the elected officials as per the usual, but definitely need more definition on the roles of the admins, as well as a standard recall procedure by the assembly, just like we do for elected officials.
Semi-Unretired
(02-07-2016, 12:51 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: Unless the specific case of non-compliance was such that it prevented the regional government from operating under decent conditions, I would not like to call it a coup, mini or otherwise. A coup is not a word that should be used lightly. That is not to say an admin should not be called out for misconduct, but to call any kind of misconduct a coup is not something I would find acceptable. A coup is an act (on NS) that substitutes power from the rightful government for the will of another individual, or collective, outside the government. While I understand that the word is inflammatory, disregarding the elected government is essentially a miniature version of this that.
Formerly Relevant, Currently Former.
The forum administration position is a technical, not governmental one; it's absolutely not the place of admins to say "I'm not doing that, I think it's illegal" - if they do they compromise themselves, and politicise administration. They have to be facilitators, and follow the instructions they receive from elected officials. If they think the instruction was illegal, they should then raise the issue in the court as any other citizen would.
Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making
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