With moot finally giving hiro the keys to the kingdom and /qa/ back up for now, everyone is talking about how all possible boards should be created, deleted, split and merged at once. And one or two other site suggestions too.So I figured now would be the best time to start up a discussion of how our moderation practices and policies could be improved. I don't know what ideas the mods and other higher-ups have or haven't discussed amongst themselves, so if they've got some input that they can let slip, or if an idea presented here isn't feasible for reasons us janis don't know, that'd be helpful to hear about.imho, the biggest problem I see is the lack of communication with the community. Rules inevitably leave a lot of room for interpretation, and even when we're trying to enforce them in an unbiased manner, it leaves a lot of questions for the users about why this is allowed or that isn't, why was I banned, why wasn't that other anon. And if nobody else is filling in those blanks for them, they'll fill them in themselves with their own made up reasons and repeat them until they're accepted as fact. To some degree this is inevitable because of the nature of the 4chan community, but I think to a large degree it's preventable if we would just clarify why we took the actions we did.Obviously, the implication here would be to make more mod/admin posts or stickies when they're necessary to address ongoing issues on the boards as they crop up. Janitors who're more familiar with the board at hand could inform the mods of the general situation and ask the mods if they'd publicly put in a word of clarification. The two arguments against this that I can think of are 1) that it's just too much work for the mod team, which is understandable but I can't know if that'd be the case, and 2) that mod posts are too disruptive to threads. To that I say, mod posts are usually needed in threads that are already facing disruption, and wouldn't be frequent enough to make a (cont)
...real difference.
I've gotten conflicting statements about whether e-celeb threads are allowed on /v/.I used to delete then on-sight, but was told to stop. A few days ago, I was told they are not allowed on /v/.
Often times there is a lack of cohesion in how things are done on certain boards. Communication needs to be amped up to make sure all updates are given to relevant parties.
>>4899In general I think the less visible moderation is, the better. The rules page should be all the explanation that's needed for why one thing was banworthy or not. More modposts and stickies just to reiterate rules that are already publicly visible seems redundant, and babysitting the current events of constantly changing board metaculture is more micromanagement than seems necessary. Those are the sorts of things the board's users, whatever that may constitute, should be setting the direction of. We are not leaders.
>>4903One of the biggest complaints from users is the lack of visible moderation.Maybe start by adding more details to the rules page and see if that helps? Not specific things, just more information on secondary topics. Like my E-celeb post above.
>>4903It's not about repeating the rules, but about a) explaining why/how the rules were applied in a certain situation, and b) showing the users that there is in fact moderation going on. Like >>4904 hinted at, a lot of users don't even know if there's moderation going on because all they see is the shit that's there, not the shit that got cleaned up.>babysitting the current events of constantly changing board metaculture is more micromanagement than seems necessaryThat's just a matter of degree. Obviously you could do it too much, but right now it's not being done at all, at least on the boards I visit. And take >>4901's example: if even the janitors don't know what's allowed or not, how are the users supposed to?>Those are the sorts of things the board's users, whatever that may constitute, should be setting the direction of.I really don't think that's how it works. People in general tend to sink down to the quality level they see around them, not try to raise that up, especially if it looks like the staff doesn't care.
My first real internet home was SomethingAwful back in the day, and personally I like their system: If someone is banned (which is appended to their post), you can click that and it'll take you to the Leper Colony, which shows recent bans/probations and the reasoning behind them Now, obviously, we wouldn't make every ban public, that wouldn't quite gel with the site I don't think, but in the case of public bans I think a page where you can see who got banned for what reason why might add a bit of transparency. Idunno, this is just me spitballing, I'm still fairly new as a janitor. If my idea's retarded feel free to tell me so, I'm not super attached to it.
>>4906This precise thing already exists and has for some time now.http://www.4chan.org/bans
>>4908Oh, shit, how the fuck did I miss that? I've been going here since 2007. Wow. Go me, I guess.
>>4906>we wouldn't make every ban public, that wouldn't quite gel with the site I don't thinkIn what way? I don't have an opinion on this, but several times I've heard users complain that the bans page should list every ban, because they think we're cherry-picking otherwise.
>>4911Just some thoughts about why we might not want to show every ban.It would not be able to show appeals, and our moderation occasionally makes mistakes.Some bans are perfectly justified if you've watched a poster and can see how consistantly bad his posts are, but just from viewing the one post you attached the ban to some people could easily interpret it as being unjustified.If you show a huge backlog of bans people can easily go in and cherrypick the questionable ones. The potential for misleading mspaint conspiracy images grows now that you can go back and find 30+ listed bans relating to one topic.You don't want to be able to consistantly see child porn by going to the bans page"they banned him for saying _____ about the mods so that means it must be true""they ban anybody who doesn't agree with them on _____ topic"etc.Although I actually know nothing about who or how the bans for that list are chosen, I think it's a good idea we don't show all of them.
>>4913I believe the system picks random bans from the ones filled via template (i.e. no custom ban message), unless the template was among the united states violation or commercial spam/advertising ones, in which case of course the ban is not shown.
>>4913I agree. Some people, but not everybody, care about the context of these things, especially in the paint images. We even have a discussion in another thread about the need to describe context to mods (especially those getting the ban queue for boards they are not familiar with, which is fairly common during the dead of night). Mods have the benefit of it being described to them clearly with links, and obviously people trying to spin their bans or even just the ban itself on the page does not contain footnotes for each ban. >>4914If I recall, I believe mods are able to choose which bans to make public when they fill them. I may be wrong, however. Each board has it's own culture and as such, applying the rules depends heavily on discretion and knowledge of the boards. So personally I think it's a good thing to make public the bans that show the best and most true enforcement of that rule, be it GR3 or NWS on a SWF board. Some things that are kosher for some boards are not for others, so it may be tricky if some bans are made public and they don't understand both the context of the ban in question, and what the culture of the other board where the rule being applied is like.
>>4913>Some bans are perfectly justified if you've watched a poster and can see how consistantly bad his posts are, but just from viewing the one post you attached the ban to some people could easily interpret it as being unjustified.Slightly off-topic now but that's part of the reason why I'm not really a fan of associating single posts with bans. A user should be judged by their posting history. But in some cases it may look like the user has been banned for only one selected post instead.
>>4913Dude you responded to here. Most of your points are just as true now as they would be with a comprehensive bans page, but your point about allowing users to cherrypick bad examples more easily is definitely true and would cause a lot of trouble.>>4915BR footnotes would be amazing. Our current system of filing the BR and saying "hey, any mods listening, here's why" in IRC is some caveman shit.>>4917I think this is a really good idea, showing on the bans page and on the user's own ban alert several posts regarding their ban reason, if there are several of them. Wouldn't change anything for janitors or the system, afaik, except maybe being able to add some checkboxes next to all the BR'd posts from a particular IP.
>>4917Thing is, only the mods can see how many BRs an IP has had in the past, and that's not trustworthy if you take dynamic IPs into account.The only real ways janitors can know if a poster is a regular shitposter are tripcodes, avatars, signatures or any other quirk. And by that point most of the board knows his habits too.In many cases users get banned for just one post. For example: porn in a blue board earns you a ban, even if it was just one post. This comes with the nature of the site. We can't cherry pick in these situations because it could be seen as favouritism by the users, and that isn't desirable.
>>4919Janitors don't need to know how many times one person has broken the rules. They just need to delete and BR posts as necessary, and the mods can see if several of those cases came from one IP and act accordingly.
>>4918Agreed, footnotes would be a welcome addition.
>>4918Our stance has always been that 99% of the time, if it's not completely obvious to us why you ban requested something simply from the post in question, then you probably shouldn't be ban requesting it. More complex or subtle issue can be raised with mods in IRC and we can do the banning, possibly with custom reasons or lengths as appropriate to the situation.>>4920This.
>>4915>I believe mods are able to choose which bans to make public when they fill themThis is completely untrue. The "public ban" option means whether USER WAS... is displayed on the post (if left undeleted) or not.
>>4920I disagree with this. We're encouraged to 'warn' whenever possible, but some users could potentially get warned over and over because I have no idea if that user was warned repeatedly.
>>4920I don't disagree with you.I was just pointing out that we shouldn't try to consider knowing a poster's 'history' because it's not reliable.As I said: users get banned for a specific post alone, not their history. We judge posts, not posting history.Maybe I wasn't clear.
>>4922The frequency with which, especially at night, janitors are filling mods in on IRC (well, more like taking a shot in the air and hope it hits something) seem to me like it wouldn't be a terrible addition. Either that, or more mod support is seriously needed. Especially at night. When there is one or two active mods getting bans for other boards, how are they supposed to know everything? I browse other boards occasionally and I see all sorts of posts that may be banned on one board but not on another - including board specific memes, board culture. I don't see how every mod is able to encompass the entirety of 4chan in their judgment. Unless you are saying we are only supposed to BR the most blatant of things, which I'm sure we all try to do, how is a mod getting the ban queue for one board supposed to know "no, this huge list of links may look like advertising but is a board tradition?' or a gifset with fake trollsubs that is used to shit up a board over and over that may look fine to any other jani or mod? Those are just a few but I've seen a lot of things like that. Sure, if it's not 'immediately apparant' that its breaking a 4chan rule, the rule is to 'let it slide' but the thing is on many boards there is plenty of subtle things that blatantly break rules, easily spottable by anyone who is a regular on that board but not really to anyone else. It's these types of situations that go by, especially at night.
>>4922I agree with >>4933 on this. The fix suggested wouldn't change how these situations are handled, it'd just make it a little more organized, efficient and thorough.>>4929Ok, I get you now. Point taken.
>>4933This.
>>4933I brought a similar issue up like two months ago here >>4844 and was pretty much completely ignored.Thing is, I understand and appreciate that the mods can't possibly know all the board cultures, or be online all the time to deal with them correctly, that is why us janis are here. We are the ones who are more familiar with whatever board we are janitoring, and if we can't give our reasoning for BRs or warning requests for the mods, then what are we even here for?
>>4933I don't see how a reason field on ban requests would help with the problem of mod support at night. Our limited manpower and timezones aren't things that can be solved by adding more information (and clutter) to ban requests.You're also underestimating how familiar we mods (collectively) are with all the boards. I can assure you the vast majority of ban requests denied are denied because the posts simply aren't deserving of 1-3 day exile, not because we don't understand why you submitted them.>>4940>if we can't give our reasoning for BRs or warning requests for the modsI see janitors doing this constantly in IRC. And refer to >>4922, if there is a less simple issue that requires explaining, then you should be doing the explaining before you submit any ban requests, not after.
>>4943I think the issue that is being prodded at here is the fact that there are periods where IRC is relatively inactive, and it's thereby difficult to know which mods (if any) are available. Going through the list and pinging everyone that's online isn't ideal because it both inconveniences mods who will only see their flashing taskbar ~11 hours later, and gives each and every janitor a great opportunity to make a wholesale ass of ourselves to a bunch of strangers on IRC, which is as discouraging as it is perhaps imagined.I don't agree with the comments section for BRs because I think it's just an excuse for janitors to make a priori judgement on issues like whether a particular post originates from a ban evader, whether a particular model is underage, etc. Which basically just means janitors stepping outside of the boundaries we should be staying within and approximating the role of a mod with fewer tools and less information.However, the issue still remains that there's currently no good way to find which of the ~6-8 mods online at the wee hours of the morn' are actually on and at their computers and interested in responding when there's something in the queue that requires a mod's input. Our boards won't burn to the ground because something questionable got left for a few hours, but it's still in my interest at least to ensure that possible cp lingers for as little time as possible on the board I volunteer for. It's not a particularly common occurrence, but it's happened in the past and I'd like to have a better process in the future. Some way to distinguish which mods are online and presently active and which are online and but not active would be really helpful.
>>4944I try to have my own name be changed if not active personally. Maybe this could be more spread around
>>4944>post originates from a ban evader, whether a particular model is underage, etcI don't think anyone wanting it was advocating for it for those reasons. Rather most were specifically talking about board culture and things like that. Whether or not it would (potentially) be used for it.Personally, if people used something like that as conservatively as possible I don't see how it would add to clutter. If it is only used in exceptional cases, it feels like it may be easier than going through the IRC. I only mentioned mod support at night because it's often hours before the relevant mod for your board is there. And there are oftentimes when even bringing up CP can go for hours before anyone responds. Usually we'll just team up to report it collectively so we can snipe it from the queue. In those cases, and I don't know so correct me if I'm wrong, do people really go through the IRC to check for things people wrote hours ago? Like "hey mods this is the reasoning for this ban"? I know that janitors do do it constantly in the IRC, but how often do the relevant people see those messages? Like I said, I only mentioned how deserted it can be at night simply because that time is usually when these issues occur most, although it can happen anytime really.Maybe these cases are really just too rare to advocate implementation of some sort of descriptor for bans. But if it was used 100% perfectly and only for situations that called for it, it feels like it would simply be a more organized way to relay information rather than IRC. It would ensure the messages would be seen more than just saying it on IRC, where quite frankly much more urgent matters often go by unchecked as well. But regardless, in the end it's just a suggestion. Like I said, maybe the situations that would call for things like that are just to rare to implement a BR comment field. It's frustrating but I guess you just have to accept a lot of things get by sometimes and all of us are just human
>>4944>Some way to distinguish which mods are online and presently active and which are online and but not active would be really helpful.The "Marked Away" feature on IRC which grays out your handle serves this purpose. Some use it, other don't. Maybe it would be helpful to encourage more people, especially mods, to use it when they aren't active, but it still wouldn't solve the overarching issue of a lack of coverage during the late night/morning hours.
>>4947Hire an Australian or two
Whether it be the main issue or not, on the subject of questionable content, I'd like to clarify something that was communicated before but may not be totally understood.In the past we preferred to use custom ban template (often still permabans) over the global 1 templates for "teens," "questionable age," etc. A common action was to copy-paste the text from the /s/ sticky >>>/s/9240138.However, while the policy in that sticky post still applies, we now enforce it universally with the global 1 templates. Nude images are considered child porn. "Jailbait" (but not nude) images are considered sexualized images of children. And if neither of those things are present, but a poster is still requesting a "teen thread" or something similar, they must be banned for requesting child porn.We expect janitors to make decisions about questionable/illegal content and act accordingly. The need for mods to use custom templates to ban such threads are gone; if you find yourself in that situation at night/when there's no support, you should take action. If you're really not sure whether something is child porn (or say, a young-looking legal porn actress), then you should absolutely bring it up in #janiteam and get input, no matter of how embarrassing it is.
>>4950>However, while the policy in that sticky post still applies, we now enforce it universally with the global 1 templates. Nude images are considered child porn.I don't want to argue with anybody nor question Team 4chan's decisions. While I do appreciate that there's finally a clarification, I still feel like there's something wrong with that. A few weeks ago, I asked a manager what I should do when I see child nudity and they told me to ban request it as CP. This left me puzzled, because there clearly is a difference between child nudity and child porn. Users that get banned for posting child nudity will see the following message: "Posting, requesting, or advertising child pornography is strictly forbidden, and against the law." In conclusion, this means users will get banned for posting "child porn", although they posted child nudity. As a user this WILL not only be confusing but it will also make them question the ban reason.I just think we should be as careful and accurate as possible when it comes to those things. In my opinion there should be a separate template for child nudity; permanent of course, this goes without saying.
>>4951This is not a subject of debate. My post was simply in response to the mention of lacking late-night support when it comes to questionable content.
>>4952I think the real problem during late night/european morning is not which template is being used, but the fact that there's not any janitor that *can* use a template on it. It happened to me several times to find child pornography (explicit one, not child model) on a board I don't have, link it in the main chat while pinging EVERY mod, and after half an hour or more still seeing the CP being undeleted. Lately I've started to ask other random janitors to report the posts illegally, or during particularly dead nights I've even found myself forced to use proxies to report it enough times that I could remove it. I seriously hope this problem is going to be seriously addressed at some point because the amount of shit that shows up at certain hours is too much to leave boards alone without moderation. Everyone knows it, the posters are expecially aware of it - the peak of cunny spam on /tv/ and the usual bestiality and cuck porn posting on /v/ at a certain hour some days of the week is an obvious indicator.
>>4953>being undeletedbeing left alone*
>>4953We "address the problem" in the only way possible, which is with periodic janitor drives and promotion of trusted veterans. Not sure what else can be done to fix a lack of coverage.>the peak of cunny spam on /tv/ and the usual bestiality and cuck porn posting on /v/ at a certain hour some days of the weekIndeed, and this is not an issue limited to a lack of active mods, but a lack of manpower, period.
OP here. An example of what I'm talking about regarding the lack of communication with the community:I've had a spurt of being more active lately, and as I was cleaning /mu/ tonight, someone complained about their off-topic posts being deleted by saying "/kpg/ is constantly filled with waifu shit, yet I make a few posts about anime..." I see this complaint from /mu/chachos a lot, so I went to /kpg/ and cleaned it out in the only way that's manageable: wait a few minutes for them to hit the bump limit and start a new thread, and start deleting/BRing from the top and hope you can make a dent before the new thread hits the limit. As always, this results in most of the thread being deleted, and the denizens get mad and make up their own stories about a "rogue janitor", who's new and hasn't learned how things work like the old janitor (who is also me), and that they've gotten old janitors (me again) fired in the past and this new one will get fired too.These have been consistent reactions and consistently held beliefs for as long as I've been here, and they perpetuate the belief that the quality of their thread and their posts are acceptable. This has the knock-on effect that the rest of /mu/ sees their shitty thread and thinks "well if that's the acceptable standard there, then that's acceptable for me as well." Thus the quality of the entire board is diminished because nobody's telling a group of posters that their thread has to be at least mostly about kpop music, and mostly of a reasonable quality of discourse.And by the way, this is exacerbated by a lack of communication from within /j/ and IRC, because any time I've brought it up, I've either gotten no response or a vague and brief one.
>So I figured now would be the best time to start up a discussion of how our moderation practices and policies could be improved. What I think we really need to more cohesion among our janitors, and mods to a lesser extent. When I talk to janitors about what they think of other jannies for their boards/if they talk I mostly get "yeah, I mean we talked once a like a month ago and we both agreed large pulsating dicks aren't worksafe etc. etc." I get that, since they're janitors, they might not feel like spending a lot of time discussing policy they don't really have control over.Honestly the best time I had as a janitor was buddying it up with another one. There's so many benefits:-You can coordinate timezone schedules so the board doesn't have as many periods without help.-You can discuss ideas about boards/events, so when you present them to others your plans are more thought out.-You can get second opinions on issues from people who might represent a more inside, detailed opinion on the issue - or who have a relatively unbiased outsider opinion.-You can be more comprehensive in your janitoring, which makes the userbase less annoyed (ex. a common complain is "why did I get banned for X one day at 3pm but it just deleted at 7pm the same day!")-It's literally more fun.-You have more of a reason to show up and do janitor stuff, which again leads to more consistent periods of moderation.I get that we're all recruited from 4chan but it wouldn't hurt to be more sociable about this stuff.
>>4987That's good advice. But also, it can be kind of hard to coordinate like this for a few reasons. First, there's not even a comprehensive list of who janis for what board, and whenever there's a new drive and a jani gets added to one of my boards, I have no way of knowing. Second, if we try to communicate on /j/, either in the "I'll be gone" thread or board discussion threads, we don't know who we're talking to because /j/ is anonymous.I'm not the most active or involved jani so maybe these issues aren't a big deal, idk.
>>4988Posting jani lists on /j/ is a bad thing because if (and when) leaks happen it gives everyone a nice boogeyman target. That said, if you ever want to know who else handles a board just ask a mod and we can give a decently comprehensive list. It's already a requirement to be in IRC when janitoring so we can yell at janitors, no reason why janitors can't use this to yell at each other anyways.While I can't officially support/demand it, what I'd like to see is janitors for certain boards try and get in touch with each other, then tell us (the mods) how these discussions are going (no matter how minor it was). Any attempt at cohesiveness in our moderation is good.
>>4989Yeah, I forgot to mention in my post that I totally understand that putting some of that information out there would be a bad idea.
>>4987I completely agree with this.We could organise short meetings in the channel. I've seen /a/ janies do it a couple of times, there's no reason not to do the same with other boards.
>>4987>and mods to a lesser extentI would argue it's more important for mods to get their shit together first desu. I've seen way too many instances of mods giving their opinion on how certain topics should be handled, only for another mod to give an entirely contradictory answer moments later. Jannies are only the legmen who follow the directions of full staff members. If there isn't consensus with moderators then there can never be consensus among janitors.If I were hiro I'd make some secret board only mods have access to and you all can list all the precedents you're setting.
>>4987>I get that we're all recruited from 4chan but it wouldn't hurt to be more sociable about this stuff.Preach it!
>>4987>that feel when you don't have a designated special buddy to discuss your board with
>>5004It's not a matter of lacking consensus. There simply isn't an established policy for every odd thing you might ask a mod about. For things that do have established policies, can you give some concrete examples of this occurring?
>>5004What the other guy said. If we're giving different answers, tell us - we're not looking for a power struggle.>>5013You'll find your responsabilibuddy one day, anon.
I'd think if people understood important reporting is to the moderation, it'd make our jobs easier even with all the garbage reports. A PSA would be nice.
>>5016I have to echo this, and I've heard other janitors expressing the same as well. I often come across posts suggesting that we janitors/mods aren't doing our jobs, only to see an empty report queue. As far as I know I'm the lone janitor for my board, so there's no way I'm going to catch every rule violation, especially those left unreported.On the other hand I sympathize with those janitors who frequently deal with 100+ reports at a time and don't want more.
