Who wants to be a moderator?

[Simon]

Chris would be an obvious choice being Daves "partner" in the venture or at least part of it

[Kiriakos-GR]

Here I've found a not too large forum (sometimes I'm scouting for topics I've not yet read) but with quality membership (yes, yes you included kirakos  ) and content in discussions. We have discussions and sometimes heated ones but it never gets down to that very low level of needless insults such as I've seen before and we all go away a bit wiser.

err sorry to ramble

You can ramble as much you like ..  

To all:

From my current attempts to coexist in this specific community ( full of differences in a social level),
I have learn the two basic base lines .
1) Debates that gets hot to boiling temperatures are allowed ,
and that's an sign of  " freedom of expression " , something that I value more than anything.

2) Do not ever say to some one , of what to say or not..( Another sign of " freedom of expression ")  

Dave if you ever  go for president , I will vote you too  
Your home are an democratic one ...  

[Simon]

freedom of expression is fine, but that does not extend to insults or blatent bending of the truth to prove a point and win a lost cause.

Unfortunately the UK has so much free speech that nobody is worth listening to, yea I'd vote Dave prime minister any day, oh wait a minute - I should be the prime minister 

[Mechatrommer]

Debates that gets hot to boiling temperatures are allowed ,
and that's an sign of  " freedom of expression " , something that I value more than anything.

There is limit. as long as it is within the domain of "intelligent reasoning" and not touching some sensitive issues, then it is still allowed... that is how i see it. Dave tried to be as generous as he can, but if its too much, i believe he will do what he should do.

Do not ever say to some one , of what to say or not..( Another sign of " freedom of expression ")

yes. Dave wouldnt comment or warn, he will just silently ban, suspend, delete or even kill the member. We should know the limit on our own, we are grown up "kiddies". the 8 criteria i mentioned above should be maintained not just by mods or admin, but for the fellow members as well. An advice for myself as well

[Simon]

well I'll tell you how free free can get, in the uk some nutter founded a charity aimed at telling people not to jog but to drive because driving a car makes less CO2 than jogging, naturally because of freedom of speech nobody could get up and tell him to go back to school and stop being a cretin. If I was the government I'd have taken him to court for defamation unless he could scientifically prove his assertion. Luckily here we have more sense than this anyway that's off topic - sorry

[Kiriakos-GR]

Hey people ... did any one noticed that shafri had start to act as an moderator ?  

The forum started to fill up , with comments over comments ..

shafri pull the dogs in , we are the same people that was here and yesterday..  

[Simon]

well if he starts suggesting Dave may quietly kill a disruptive member that's worrying    This board does need any brute force moderation, just keeping tidy

[TheDirty]

It's a thankless job and even the best made decisions that help 5 people annoy 2.

[Kiriakos-GR]

well if he starts suggesting Dave may quietly kill a disruptive member that's worrying    This board does need any brute force moderation, just keeping tidy

I bet that he acts like that from the excitement ..   

Its time to split ( ala Americanish )     ( bed time )

[Mechatrommer]

shafri pull the dogs in , we are the same people that was here and yesterday..  

i dont have any dog.

The forum started to fill up , with comments over comments ..

when i saw people fighting, to become a judge i will always ask the first question... who started it?

It's a thankless job and even the best made decisions that help 5 people annoy 2.

i dont get it. english translation plsss. does it mean... "pls jump out of the airplane"?

[Time]

He means nobody is going to thank you for doing a good job.  As a moderator, a good decision that helps 5 people is going to make 2 other people not like you.


Where did you get jump out of the airplane? LOL

[TheWelly888]

My thinking is that this forum could do with more than one moderator permanently to share the workload with our Dave.

A forum I'm on ( www.rmweb.co.uk ) is VERY active yet very well moderated. The secret? Only the adminstrator is named, the other 6 moderators are all anonymous ( ie Mod1, Mod2 to Mod6 ) and they have all been very active in dealing with spammers and troublemakers. The adminstrator chose the Mods himself.

I doubt this forum needs as many as 6 anonymous moderators but is it worth considering at least one anonymous Mod here, Dave? It will give that Mod the freedom to make ( sensible! ) posts in his own name and any moderation posts anonymously.

[Mechatrommer]

Where did you get jump out of the airplane? LOL

well, thats a long story from a friend that he told me twice. about an italian and english stewardess, if i'm not mistaken.

anonymous mods could be a way. but if we got banned unjustified, its hard to appeal to Dave as we dont know who ban us. but, i'm not sure how its really works.

[TheDirty]

i dont get it. english translation plsss. does it mean... "pls jump out of the airplane"?

That was English.

A forum I'm on ( www.rmweb.co.uk ) is VERY active yet very well moderated. The secret? Only the adminstrator is named, the other 6 moderators are all anonymous ( ie Mod1, Mod2 to Mod6 ) and they have all been very active in dealing with spammers and troublemakers. The adminstrator chose the Mods himself.

At first thought, anonymous moderation seems like a terrible idea.  Maybe Model train people are just a well organized bunch.

Actually this forum has done fairly well with essentially 0 moderation to this point.  Maybe there's more threads/posts going into the trash bin than I hear about.  I administer a medium sized forum already and it's always a juggling game with some people thinking you are too hard and some you're too soft.

All I can say is if you have a moderator, make sure you have absolutely clear behavior and posting rules in order to minimize the judgments they have to make.  It's much easier if they can point to the list of rules when moderating posts/users rather than saying they've crossed some gray line.

[David]

I would put myself down to be one. 

[DJPhil]

Wow, I've been nominated by name! Thanks guys, it really does mean a lot to me to be noticed.

We have so many good folks already willing to help, so I think I'll bow out of this one unless I'm desperately needed. My spare time could drop to nothing overnight if I catch some work, and I wouldn't want that to have an effect on the forums.

There have been two great suggestions so far that I think will help make the job easier for anyone that does it . . .

Multiple moderators supporting each other will help a great deal in decision making and helps split the workload.

Moderator anonymity comes as close as possible to allowing mods a normal life on the forums when not moderating. The key to staying anonymous (assuming you want to be and take basic precautions) is keeping posts short so that you don't give yourself away by typing style.

[Mechatrommer]

i just noticed. away for a few weeks? oh no! there will be no videos for the weeks!

[migsantiago]

The power of moderation is given... not requested.

[EEVblog]

i just noticed. away for a few weeks? oh no! there will be no videos for the weeks!

Hopefully there will be.
Some stuff from the Renesas Devcon event I'm going to, and maybe some electronics places of interest I visit along the way!
All dependent upon edit time approved by Mrs EEVblog of course!

Dave.

[Simon]

well if he starts suggesting Dave may quietly kill a disruptive member that's worrying    This board does need any brute force moderation, just keeping tidy

I bet that he acts like that from the excitement ..   

Oh dear this get worse, Dave started by killing members out of defence now for pleasure ? I wonder what next.

The idea of being anonymous is not a bad one, but again on this board it's just a case of removing stupid and spammy posts/thread/sigs

[EEVblog]

Sometimes someone with less knowledge is better because they are less likely to have a strong opinion about something.

I have a few questions:

Is the moderation temporary? Will it be revoked as soon as you're back.

How much power will the moderator have? Will they just be able to edit/remove posts or will they be able to remove spam signatures or ban?

It would be permanent, unless something goes horribly wrong.
The default setting is just to edit/remove/move etc, no banning of profiles, that seems reasonably enough to me.
Although the issue is the spammers, I simply remove their account and all posts, but that requires the ability to ban profiles.

Dave.

[Simon]

I think most spammers drop a couple of posts and then leave so not a huge issue, something you can sort out once your back

[ElektroQuark]

A good Mod will never ban anyone if you don't want him to. I will only use that "power" with spammers. Don't worry.

[EEVblog]

I think most spammers drop a couple of posts and then leave so not a huge issue, something you can sort out once your back

Yeah, they seem to dump and then go.
At least they help with the stats! 
Still have no idea how they get past the human questions, they are obviously very clever bots or poor humans earning well below minimum wage.

Dave.

[Simon]

well owing to their drop and walk away tactics I'd say that they are real people doing the spamming, you know when you've got a bot, it automatically delivers a new spammy thread to each category and it is generally blatant spam as it's not aimed at any particular subject as it will infest any forum it runs across on the net