JonesCarpeDiem said:
The moderation came into play after 2 days of uncontrolled spamming.
Why was it uncontrolled? BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ONE HERE TO TAKE CARE OF IT.
Spamming started on wee hours of April 11th. The controls that were in place to prevent spam since we launched on Jive were largely disabled and that's why it happened. We first worked to get rid of the spam starting the morning of 4/11 (over 4K posts in total over the course of 24 hrs) and then to restore the settings to prevent an ongoing attack. Within the first 36 hours spam was completely removed and the spam prevention services restored. We added some additional controls in response to those large scale attacks and it has successfully prevented several attacks since then.
JonesCarpeDiem said:
The profanity filter came into play after profane personal attacks were made on members that sat for two days, unmoderated.
And, why was it uncontrolled? BECAUSE NO ONE WAS HERE TO TAKE CARE OF IT.
cathnolan1's comment was posted but was never marked as abuse so I wasn't aware of it. Had I known about it, it likely would have been addressed within 24 hrs.
Other comments were made on 6/1-6/2 and an abuse report was sent by cathnolan1 on 6/2 followed by private messages and emails from other members about cathnolan1. I temporarily(I was traveling at the time) banned cathnolan1 until I could assess the situation on 6/2 and 6/3. I got in contact with ShawnP while in transit to cease any ongoing comments. The morning of 6/3 just the personal attacks were removed from the thread.
JonesCarpeDiem said:
IS THIS SITE GOING TO HAVE A FULL TIME MODERATOR, 24/7 or even 12/7 (by moderator, I mean someone who can get to the site to fix a problem) OR ARE THEY JUST GOING TO CONTINUE CLAMPING DOWN ON OUR FREEDOMS BECAUSE IT'S EASIER FOR THEM, Institutionalizing people's original ideas, moving posts, etc?
If you're trying to help someone and your comment is unseen because it is in moderation because of some algorithm/filter , you've helped no one.
For the forseeable future there won't be a moderator 24/7. There just isn't that much activity currently. And once the controls are adjusted this should be less of an issue. There really isn't that much automatic spam filtered items in moderation(and will hopefully be less in the near future) so to have someone paid to sit around doing nothing would be not beneficial to the site. I'm checking the site from 7am Eastern until 11pm Eastern 7 days a week often releasing things shortly after they are posted on weekdays.
Moderators usually have very limited control. Hopefully if Jive can help us get the issue ironed out that this will become less of an issue. Moderating is not easy in the 10+ years I've been doing it, but it's a necessary thing. Hopefully it happens rarely though as it's not a fun thing. I have read a number of threads from over the years where people left for a while or permanently because disputes were handled between members because there wasn't consistent order. I'm sad that happened and would really like to avoid that in the future. I'm here to help.
Sometimes we do move content to ensure it gets the most visibility. Sometimes things are posted somewhere where they won't be seen. This community's members produce great posts and we want as many people (members, lurkers and guests) to benefit from them as possible. Curation of community content happens in all communities. Honestly, I move less than 1 post a week and nearly all posts I ask before I move it. As time goes on it happens less and less. Questions about using the community that are widely beneficial to the masses are moved to Community Help and posts about quitting that are put in Community Help are moved to Conversations. I'm methodical about that to reduce clutter.
We don't institutionalize ideas. We only remove personal attacks and solicitation. The remainder of a person's comments are left untouched.
I'll respond to some of the other comments that were made a little bit later!
Mark
EX Community Manager
EX Community Admin Team
