Then we need to amend Article 8 of the charter where it indicates that the administration team develops moderation policies, and create the policies the assembly feels best for the region. I agree that the admins and mods need to be trusted to adhere to and apply the policies....but the assembly should have a say in how the forums we conduct business on are moderated.

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Thanks Unibot for restarting this discussion. I look forward to us all reaching an agreement on how best to conduct our administrative and moderation duties, and I hope this thread will remain productive and civil.

- Moderation exists outside of our constitution and is not curtailed by our constitution or our individual political rights. That serves as a HUGE opportunity for politicians to remove players they don't like.
- There seems to be no consistent administrative policy.

The Charter does mention forum moderation, and it does say that the Charter carries supremacy over any law of the Coalition. I do recognise that there is a rather grey area in terms of whether moderation policies count as laws, and how we should act when enforcement of moderation policies violated the rights of citizens. However, I've always held that moderation policies do not trump the Bill of Rights, and we should definitely find a balance where people that have genuinely pushed the line get punished, but citizens don't have their rights violated.

- The process to becoming an admin is social and political (which threatens the technical and meritocracy of adminship).
- The process of being removed as admin is social and political (which threatens the technical and meritocracy of adminship).

I will agree that in the previous forum the process did seem to be dictated by politics, and not enough by trustworthiness and meritocracy. I think we have a fine team right now, and would like to include a short description of what is expected in an admin and how to name or dismiss one if we ever adopt a Charter of Governance, like Awe proposed.

- Discussion is curtailed instead of encouraged.
- Moderation and the Rule of Policy is applied unevenly: punishments are heavier against dissenters than loyalists. This is probably a result of the first point.

I don't think discussion is curtailed instead of encouraged. You mentioned how threads would get locked eventually, but I should remind you of how the tone and discussion in those threads ended up. There were toxic arguments, and the discussions weren't going anywhere. Now, I don't mean to say that admins can just argue that a thread is toxic and lock it, but I do mean to say that context is important in this case. You do know that we have always encouraged discussions, and the very fact that this thread exists and we're having a civil discussion in it means that we are on the right path so far.

I will agree that moderation rules were sometimes applied unevenly and to people with a record of unpopular opinions more than to other citizens. That is a pattern that as far as I'm concerned has no place in this forum, and as long as I'm admin will remain so. I don't think that can be placed in the rules really, but rather it's something that people should speak up against whenever it happens, if it does at all.

- Moderation instead of having an arsenal of options available (i.e., banning players from certain forums or for short periods of time) seems to only have one punishment: ban the person for a year and lock the thread before anyone might read what important thing they said.
- Administration can read and observe the private forums of our government, giving them a distinct political advantage. A.K.A "Big Brother is Watching You".

When we come up with our moderation policies there should be a detailed description of each offence and what it takes to get each punishment. I should point out that locking a thread doesn't prevent people from reading what was posted in it, so what you said about it doesn't make much sense.

Our admins can read all private areas, but I think it all comes down again to whether we have an admin team composed of trustworthy and capable individuals. If we can't trust our admins to distinguish their administrative from their political duties and responsibilities, chances are they shouldn't be admins at all. We have to find individuals that we can trust, and that have shown that they can be objective and fair in their judgment calls.

Then we need to amend Article 8 of the charter where it indicates that the administration team develops moderation policies, and create the policies the assembly feels best for the region. I agree that the admins and mods need to be trusted to adhere to and apply the policies....but the assembly should have a say in how the forums we conduct business on are moderated.

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I actually don't think it's a good idea to have the Assembly create and approve moderation policies. I fully agree with letting it have a voice in the process of establishing policies, but I wouldn't support putting that in the Charter. I think we should be aiming towards civil and trusted discussions, not formal and political votes, and formally giving the Assembly the power to vote down moderation policies won't necessarily accomplish that.

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The suggestion of amending the charter was in response to GE's post.

I'm thinking more along the lines of these discussions creating a formal and legal process for moderating these forums. However we come to that is fine with me, as long as the assembly and the admin team can agree on the policies as a whole and how they are applied.

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I have some strong opinions on this subject.

I think many regions go wrong when they give delegates admin powers simply because they have the most power from an in-game perspective.

In my opinion there are three keys to being a good admin
One - Objectivity
It is critical to have an administrator who can be objective. I believe Hileville had been able to do this for a very long time, but I think at some point his objectivity became challenged. Once ojbectivity is challenged forums usually go two sheets to the wind. If administrators make biased decisions based on who their friends are or who they are politically aligned with that undermines our laws.

Two - Responsiveness
I believe it is also critical that admins are responsive. When there is work to be done, the admin team must be able to quickly respond to demands. An unresponsive admin team means that a lot of what admins are there to do doesn't get done.

Three - Trust
I also believe that trust amongst the admins and trust with the community is important. If the community believes admins are not responsive and are not objective there could be continual strife. This isn't to say every person in a community has to love and respect every admin, but once belief in objectivity and responsiveness is lost it's really hard to get it back. Allow me to stay on trust for a moment because I believe it's the glue that keeps things together. Trust is a currency that can be increased or decreased in a number of ways:

• Has the admin been a prominent member of government before?
  
• Has the admin conducted themselves with respect in front of the community?
  
• Has the admin performed his/her duties consistently?
  
• Is the admin involved in other organizations within NS that may conflict with the ethos of TSP?
  

The list isn't exhaustive but in my opinion these three areas are critical for administrating.

This leads me to ask should the community select the admins or should the admins select the admins? I go back and forth on this. The admin team need to trust their fellow members. Even if the community doesn't trust some of the admin team, if the actual admin team don't trust each other, that's death to an administration. We saw this in our old forums.

I say this because if the community selects someone the admin team wouldn't, that can cause problems. If we go in the other direction, where the community doesn't trust an admin or two - while the effects are the same they don't spiral as out of control than when admins don't trust each other. Either way, it's not good. Thus, I think my position is this.

The administrators select admins. In that selection process, the members of the community have a chance to affirm or reject the selection. This allows admins to continue to select their members and the community to express their belief in the admins choice.

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The administrators select admins. In that selection process, the members of the community have a chance to affirm or reject the selection. This allows admins to continue to select their members and the community to express their belief in the admins choice.

You mean like a motion of confidence? I quite like this idea, but I'm unsure if it'd place unnecessary burden on the Assembly that other members of the community may be opposed to

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First, I would like to say that there are alternative mechanisms we could use for regulating Moderation.

1. Non-binding Recommendations.
2. Broader policies, which Moderation could more specifically elaborate on.
3. An Independent Review Process.

Regulation can be self-policed, fiat-policed or independently-policed.

So when you're bringing up points here, please don't limit yourself to thinking that this is a "Trust Moderation to be Perfect v. Turning Moderation into a Government Arm" scenario. We do not have to do one or the other.

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I don't think discussion is curtailed instead of encouraged. You mentioned how threads would get locked eventually, but I should remind you of how the tone and discussion in those threads ended up. There were toxic arguments, and the discussions weren't going anywhere. Now, I don't mean to say that admins can just argue that a thread is toxic and lock it, but I do mean to say that context is important in this case. You do know that we have always encouraged discussions, and the very fact that this thread exists and we're having a civil discussion in it means that we are on the right path so far.

Context is important, however you admit that admins can just argue that thread is toxic and lock it.

It appears to me that what is "toxic" to some is not "toxic" to everyone.

If discussions isn't "going anywhere" - locking it only ensures they really do go nowhere.

Locking threads because the discussion isn't going in a direction that some like is detrimental to the community and the dialogue. It's a short term solution. It puts the argument off instead of letting the community discuss the issue to an eventual conclusion.

This thread itself is a conclusion of a discussion that was deemed "toxic" and the basis of a lock (I believe?) on the old forums.

What I would like to see is admins encouraged to split threads they feel are spawning into a new topic - as opposed to locking them and calling it "derailment". Derailment implies the speakers have malicious intent, when in fact discussion into different forays is an organic process.

When we come up with our moderation policies there should be a detailed description of each offence and what it takes to get each punishment. I should point out that locking a thread doesn't prevent people from reading what was posted in it, so what you said about it doesn't make much sense.

No, but locking a thread stops the discussion from continuing and colours the speaker as having been in the wrong. It's a known tactic of a police state and encourages self-regulation and a spiral of silence.

I will agree that moderation rules were sometimes applied unevenly and to people with a record of unpopular opinions more than to other citizens. That is a pattern that as far as I'm concerned has no place in this forum, and as long as I'm admin will remain so. I don't think that can be placed in the rules really, but rather it's something that people should speak up against whenever it happens, if it does at all.

Thank you for agreeing that the moderation rules were applied unevenly - and mostly to those with a record of unpopular opinions as opposed to those with more loyalist opinions.*

However, this was something I've been saying for about two years and it was excused in every instance I ever accused moderation of operating under a bias. I don't think it's simple enough to say "people should speak up against whenever it happens".

This is where an independent review could distance itself from the generally loyalist public and the generally loyalist moderation and observe cases of bias. This would give a bigger voice and greater credibility to any legitimate criticism of political outsiders. Because, bear in mind, political outsiders generally do not have the credibility to advance claims against moderation (and in the case of Hileville, you would have gotten banned if you did - guaranteed).

Our admins can read all private areas, but I think it all comes down again to whether we have an admin team composed of trustworthy and capable individuals. If we can't trust our admins to distinguish their administrative from their political duties and responsibilities, chances are they shouldn't be admins at all. We have to find individuals that we can trust, and that have shown that they can be objective and fair in their judgment calls.

I think this is fairly naive - if access is unnecessary, access should not be granted. We don't need admins to read all of our private areas - there aren't many moderation issues in cabinet.

If you block access, you block one of the major reasons why an opportunist would even want to apply to be an admin. This is a very efficient way to ensure a better team of admins - which we have to look at alongside the appointment process (which also has to be discussed).

It's about (1) finding good admins, (2) limiting reasons why bad admins would want to apply.

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*I'm using the term "loyalist" as a broad title for people who generally defend the status quo. A more conservative bloc of TSP that has a high degree of credibility in comparison to "reformers"

(This post was last modified: 04-05-2014, 11:57 AM by Sandwich Territories.)

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- Moderation instead of having an arsenal of options available (i.e., banning players from certain forums or for short periods of time) seems to only have one punishment: ban the person for a year and lock the thread before anyone might read what important thing they said.
- Administration can read and observe the private forums of our government, giving them a distinct political advantage. A.K.A "Big Brother is Watching You".

When we come up with our moderation policies there should be a detailed description of each offence and what it takes to get each punishment. I should point out that locking a thread doesn't prevent people from reading what was posted in it, so what you said about it doesn't make much sense.

Our admins can read all private areas, but I think it all comes down again to whether we have an admin team composed of trustworthy and capable individuals. If we can't trust our admins to distinguish their administrative from their political duties and responsibilities, chances are they shouldn't be admins at all. We have to find individuals that we can trust, and that have shown that they can be objective and fair in their judgment calls.

I think the old mod policies were terrible. There was a different point value for every little offence. If I remember correctly, there were 10 or 15 different offences that points could be administered. Thats a lot to remember and keep straight.
When Bels came up with a new warning system, it was as straight forward as it gets. 1+ unofficial warnings, and then you get an official one. That official warning comes with a short posting ban. NOT a full ban, just a posting one. At least one other unofficial warning has to come before a 2nd official one, and a longer posting ban. Again once more, until, after the 4th set or warnings, the admin team discusses whether the offender should have some other punishment. Unofficial warnings lasted 1 month(?) and official ones lasted 6, stacking, until the 4th warning.
This makes it easy to remember what the consequences of your actions are, and pretty easy for the admins to enforce.

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Alright guys -- so let's break this down into two points.

1) How are we picking admins? and 2) What are the policies going to be?

For selecting admins, I would like to have a nominate and approve function -- as Punk as suggested. The current admin team can suggest new members -- when needed -- and then the Assembly would approve the nomination. Also, I think the Assembly would need to be able to revoke an admin if the admin is stepping out of line.

Now -- I'm not sure what the set up is exactly -- but I don't believe I could be removed as an admin (GR, please correct me if I'm wrong.) As such, I think it would be prudent that I don't partake in moderation directly, but instead act primarily as enabler for the other admins. Obviously, I would still have admin powers, but after we get everything set up here, I would only use them in extraordinary circumstances.

With regard to admin policies, I think it is important to have a warn and then punish system. This system will always be open to criticism and any policy will always be open to interpretation. I think both the admin and the Assembly can sketch some broad outlines.

Using history as an example, warnings have already been incredibly limited. I don't think anyone who would be trusted as an admin is offering to do it for political gain. Still, by having a nomination and recall policy, the region would be protected from such abuses.

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The suggestion of amending the charter was in response to GE's post.

I was doin' it more to point out the futility of the Assembly writin' administrative policies.

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Uni, please stop castigating the entire Admin team for Hileville's misbehavior. There was a reason why he removed practically the entire admin team.

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