Call for Moderator nominations Locked

Dear Sony SLR forum members

as most of you are probably aware we have recently started the beta phase of our community moderation project. In this forum we have currently only two moderators and could do with a few more. So if you know a fellow member who you think would make a really good moderator please send me a PM.

If you'd like to be a mod yourself please also send me a PM. I can then give you a little more detail and explain how it all works.

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Lars Rehm, dpreview.com
Twitter: @larsrehm

Thanks Lars for opening this up

This forum has gotten much better in my opinion having moderators. Even though I initially had some issues.... Thanks!

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Karl Scharf >>> ( Sony SLT-A77, Rokinon 8mm, Sigma 10-20 f4.0-5.6, Sigma 18-250 f3.5-6.3, Sigma 50-500 f4.5-6.3 OS, Minolta 70-210 f4.0, Minolta 50 f1.7, Kenko 1.4x DGX ) <<<

Thanks for the feedback, please bear in mind that this is new for everyone involved, moderators and admins alike. So it's a learning process for everyone and hopefully we can improve moderation further over the next few weeks.

--
Lars Rehm, dpreview.com
Twitter: @larsrehm

Since we seem to be the bad boys of this experiment, may I suggest dp go over the nominations, pick people they feel comfortable with and let the forum vote on who they want; we know our members.

Pick up someone who is not from this forum, so he/she would be:

• Less talkie, or better yet, totally invisible.
• Paying more attention to how people talks rather than what they are talking about.
• Unfamiliar to everyone in this forum.

You'd like someone to efficiently moderate this forum, not excercising democracy or popularity.

Do we need that many moderators?

Aren't two just enough?

Two moderators should indeed be enough in my opinion, three at the most. From no moderators to 2 or 3 is quite an improvement and should make this forum a much friendlier place.

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Karl Scharf >>> ( Sony SLT-A77, Rokinon 8mm, Sigma 10-20 f4.0-5.6, Sigma 18-250 f3.5-6.3, Sigma 50-500 f4.5-6.3 OS, Minolta 70-210 f4.0, Minolta 50 f1.7, Kenko 1.4x DGX ) <<<

Based on my experiences, the best moderators are invisible moderators. This eliminates any potential conflicts of interest between moderating and their own participation in the community. ie. There is a hardware enthusiast forum that I've been a member of for nearly 12 years that implemented all moderators actions as "Personnel". Whereas, those same person(s) would continue on as regular members for all other participation. The idea was instituted after years struggling with accusations of personal bias and harassment all the way to real world stocking and threats toward members moderating the forums.

That being said, the anonymity system worked very well and things improved dramatically since then.

True story

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This is where I'd normally write an impressive summary of my skills and proficiencies.

The moderator label should be removed and the moderator should be invisible. Also a max of three mods per forum should be more than enough. On a lighter note I think the current mods here on the Sony forum are doing an excellent job. It is a learning process as stated earlier and the learning must include every member of the forum.

In light of Dpreview's poor choice of mod for this forum, all the current mods should be done away with and we should vote from scratch who we want moderating the forum.
EDIT: I had no idea Ralf B was a choice for mod.  I just nominated him in a PM to Lars.  Obviously I think Ralf is an excellent choice and I support him fully as I nominated him before I knew he was a mod.

--
'...For every man who has ever lived, in this universe,
there shines a star.'
-Arthur C. Clarke
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One of the moderators of this forum, is also currently the most prolific poster on this forum. The other used to post more often, prior to him becoming a moderator, and now hasn't posted much.

So, is it better that a moderator is just a regular poster with powers, or should they be anonymous?

If a moderator posts as a regular member, then he should take off his moderator label. Otherwise, if a moderator gets into a discussion, and when they doesn't like the way the discussion is going, they'll send a private message threatening the other person with banishment, even if no rules were broken. He should be like everyone else, if you don't want to be in a discussion, then just don't respond, or ignore the other poster. Isn't that what is expected from all posters?

The other day, one of this forum's poster and who was a 'veteran' poster, Ionian, who got fed up with one of the moderator's tactics, and started a thread stating what he saw as an injustice. Since the thread was started late at night, when most people are asleep, the thread was removed before many people read it. And, either Ionian left this forum on his own, or was banned from this forum.

Dpreview needs to do a better job explaining to the moderators what is expected from them. The moderators need to know when to stop being a moderator, so they don't find themselves in a situation where they get upset, and ban someone who's only transgression was to upset the moderator.

I was afraid your actions from the other day would mean you were no longer welcomed here.

Sounds like that will solve a number of problems with this forum.

While I might agree this forum could be improved by more active moderation, this will only be an improvement if the moderators are chosen wisely.

I would suggest two things:

• First review the activity of any of potential moderator pretty closely. Signs that they get into personal, antagonizing behavior and such is not good.
• Second, monitor their activity as moderators. 

Hopefully, you've already considered this. But based on the recent moderation that I have seen, if this was done, I'm wondering if you could have done better.

(although, I am willing to concede it's quite likely no one else wanted to bother with becoming a moderator, and you took the best choices you had).

Someone who begins to take a very defensive tone on any difference of opinions probably isn't going to make a good moderator.

I've recently had a reply in a thread deleted, and am kinda stunned by it actually. In discussing the potential for a new feature in some cameras based on a patent filing, I suggested the feature may never come to be, but that the manufacture was simply filing to patent to protect against competitors doing this. I understand how this can be taken as a somewhat negative slant, but most of us believe companies regularly do this, for better or worse, and patent ownership does end up being a pretty solid fact in defining the value of some companies, who will patent whatever they think has any value whether they develop it or not.

That was apparently deleted, as far as I can tell, and my suspicion is that it was done by a recently recruited moderator.

I nominate Holy Believer or Ionian as a new mod!  Or myself!

only if you can top his picture, with a pentax in your drawers:-D

I don't have any pictures like that in my collection I'm afraid.

I do have some screenshots of mushy low res a99 video though, but you guys have seen enough of that.

IMHO the past dos not matter much, what matters is the mod style to use in the future.

I think mods should be able to participate in discussions - why would you want to moderate a forum where either the subject makes you yawn or, if the subject interests you, you cannot participate.

There is a simple rule for a mod that avoids any collision:

Don't judge/moderate the CONTENT, only judge/moderate the FORM of expression.

I.e. expressed facts, opinions, answers, criticism, you should not even start to interfere, not even if it is OT, wrong, strong, stupid or whatever. It's freedom of speech and opinion and part of the free (photo) society. But if people are rude, don't behave civilized, verbally abuse other people etc., i.e. intrude other people's rights and dignity, THAT's the time to become active.

Juts my 2 cents.

I agree, and it is a point that I made a few days ago. However, I don't think another member's suggestion of PM from a mod in cases of bad behaviour would help - if the guilty party felt aggrieved he would likely simply 'out' the mod in open forum. All warnings should come from the top level. Based on recent experience, PM's from junior mods just result in further argument and conflict.

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i know what i know, which is a fraction of what i don't