Forum moderation

@RonSabourin and @JeremySimmons wanted a discussion on forum moderation. This thread will be the place where we discuss how it could be handled moving forward.

I’d like to hear your perspective.

I think you are taking some very positive steps to improve this forum. Thanks @Zach_Kaplan

Elect Moderators from the Community, by the community. stackoverflow.com does this. Moderators generally have a term, and get re-elected.

Create a category for FAQs that is curated by the moderators, so people can find things instead of having to search for them. Allow the community for ask for new topics here. Encourage quality posts by top contributors here.

Make discipline objective, based on highly specific published rules. If you encounter a new situation, have a system to create a new ruling (either moderators or community voting on rules)

The current rules are subjective to interpretation by an individual. What one person may consider offensive is not offensive at all to others. Specific example, calling someone “Lazy” for not searching and/or indicating what information they already possess. Really, this just indicates that quality help information is not cataloged and easy to find.

Stricter enforcement of the rules. If you have rules, and they’re not enforced, they’re no good at all.

3 strikes rule. If you consistently violate specific rules multiple times, you will be banned from creating content (posts/replies) in the forum permanently. You could even do a points or demerits system. 1 point for first offense, 2 for a second etc. 8 points total with a regift of 2 points per quarter.

I know there have been numerous times where people should have been banned, but were not.

I appreciate the effort to be open and inclusive of all, but many grievances and injustices have been done in the name of tolerance.

Honestly. I appreciate the effort to listen, as I always have. I’m grateful to Inventables for creating a great product that I’ve enjoyed. The forum is what sold me on an XCarve. It’s not the same forum it is today that it was in the past.

Interesting. I have been largely absent from the forums for a few weeks and it seems that while I was gone there has been a big brou-ha-ha centered around newbs expressing concerns that they aren’t getting the help they feel they need. Apparently this has something to do with the establishment of Easel Pro and the newbs (perhaps reasonable) expectation of better support for software which they are paying to use and their (pretty much unreasonable) expectation that the old forum hands should provide it for them without complaint.

Okay. The rise of complaints about the forums are somewhat a surprise to me because, prior to my short hiatus from the forums, I perceived the Inventables forums as some of the best, most helpful forums on the Internet.

Be that as it may.

X-carve and general CNC specifics aside, this sounds like pretty much the same controversy that every listserv, majordomo, email list, user forum, and social media group has gone through since I first logged on to the ARPANET in the mid-1970s. And there’s no need to reinvent the wheel because the solutions are known, tried, and tested.

So here’s my two cents.

1. Put together a decent machine-specific FAQ, with permanently editable/updateable answers, at a permanent URL for the newbs (and, really, for all of us who haven’t yet achieved X-carve guru status).

2. Provide links to, a good, general CNC FAQ from WITHIN the Inventables machine-specific FAQ. If a satisfactory general CNC FAQ doesn’t exist, create one.

3. Clean-up the organization of the forums and improve the search engine. Seriously. The difficulty, and frustration, folks are having searching for answers is, at least in part, because the forums have SO many redundant and overlapping posts on SO many overlapping topics that it can take a very long time to sift through all the chaff to get to the gold nuggets of CURRENT machine info that one needs.

The “wild west”, free-for-all style forum was fine when X-carve users were relatively few and we were all climbing the learning curve on our machines together. But we’re past that phase. That the original forums aren’t working well now is a measure of Inventable’s success at generating interest in CNC and an indication that more order and organization needs to be imposed for the benefit of all.

4. Recruit (or hire) some seasoned moderators. Ideally the moderators would be people who have experience moderating discussion groups and experience creating and maintaining large databases and related search tools. And, ideally, the moderators should be recruited from the ranks of the X-carve gurus who have already contributed so much, and helped so many, in the past few years.

5. Establish and publicize clear forum rules which spell out in detail what behavior is acceptable and what is not (like ad hominem attacks of any sort). (The rules already established are pretty good.) Also, perhaps, along with said rules, establish an appeals or complaint process which would prevent user abuse by moderators.

6. Develop more of the “How-To” videos like those Mo has done and make them available at a permanent URL. Maybe even establish a regular, weekly, educational live TWITCH stream.

Two thumbs up to everything

As Zach explained in his post yesterday, we’ve launched new guidelines and will be enforcing them consistently going forward. Everyone gets a clean slate.

and will be enforcing them consistently going forward

Does the current moderation staff really have time for that?
How can you apply subjective rules concistently?

What’s the appeals process for when you’ve been unjustly flagged and/or trolled, but a moderator hasn’t disciplined those who have committed the offense?

Great comments so far. I am certain there will be more…

Quick question for @Zach_Kaplan … we all know the forum is community driven and the information within has assisted countless on here (myself for sure…)… my question to you is, is the forum worthwhile for Inventables?

Is there a benefit from the information within, and if so, why have you never considered asking some of the frequent folk to assist with the maintenance or growth of the forum? Perhaps now might be as good as any…?

And just another question… do you want us to give you ideas? Recommendations? A business plan? Will there be a timeline in mind for any changes, if they happen?

Keep the convo going …

@RickJohnson Thank you for saying what I also wanted to express.

I hope for Inventables sake, they understand that moderation is not the real issue here on the forum. As Rick explained, the real factor is the way the forum is structured and that no clear FAQ exists.

Please Inventables, take heed of the information the experienced users are telling you and not the emotions of the minority few who have created the majority of issues.

@HalfNormal that’s what this thread is about. We have a team at Inventables working on this with all of you. Everyone is reading all these posts. We want to hear your thoughts.

We are also honoring requests to delete posts and accounts. @RobertCanning has been added to the list for deletion next week. Our admin interface doesn’t allow me to delete it so I have to send a request to our software engineering team to do the deleting process.

@Zach_Kaplan Thanks you for the quick reply.

It is refreshing to see you back here and involved. That in itself speaks volumes on your commitment on making improvements for a better user experience!

@Zach_Kaplan Does this mean that all of Robert’s past posts will be lost to the community? If so, I am very sad to see that happen. I have found many of Robert’s posts and his videos to be very helpful over the past couple of years and I will miss them if they are removed.

Surely there is another solution that would satisfy all parties and thereby maintain the knowledge that will otherwise be lost to the community?

The forum is just experiencing growing pains. Yes, those pains seem to have be come a pandemic but fortunately a curable one. Moderation IS the answer. Fair and consistent policing of the forum can quickly bring things under control and get it back to being a great source of information. I need this forum and want it to work.

My vote is for appointed volunteer member/moderators following stated guidelines. Personally, I am concerned with member selected reps. This should not be a popularity contest as there will be times when moderators will need to do things that may not be popular with someone or a group of members. We have seen this recently when Inventables tried to control things only to be castigated for their efforts.

Moderators need to be chosen for their ability to treat everyone fairly. After all, the bottom line is this is Inventables forum and I my opinion is they should appoint the moderators to maintain their guidelines. If the moderator does not work out and complaints are filed they can quickly replace him. How is this handled with elected moderators? Just have to wait for the next election before a problem can be remedied? As we have seen here things can go south in a hurry if control is not consistent.

I have been active on a forum for 15 years that is very similar to this one and functions with sponsor appointed moderators ( http://www.glen-l.com/phpBB2/index.php ). There are very few problems and moderators handle those offline. No tit for tat by members - it is simply not allowed. System works very well and could be duplicated here. Just my 2 cents…

If we have community moderators what criteria should we be using to evaluate if someone is qualified to be a moderator?

Robert requested his posts be removed. That is his decision and right, but definitely our loss.

If we have community moderators what criteria should we be using to evaluate if someone is qualified to be a moderator?

Competency and proficiency with the forum. you can judge that empirically by their usage of the software, and by the quality of their moderation actions. If the software tracks moderation actions (did view a flagged post, did participate in a thread that has flags, did communicate via pm with a link to a flagged message). If the platform doesn’t help you see and track moderatation actions, then there’s no accountability to moderate.

Moderators need to be chosen for their ability to treat everyone fairly.

Yes. if a judgement is made, state the rule broken and deduct points. If some wants to contest, other moderators have to weigh in.

Without clear objective rules and/or an appeals process, it’s a dictatorship, not a republic.

I really believe you are over thinking this - Points, Appeals, Moderator peer review? At the site I linked above none of this has ever been needed. Once rules are in place the community will quickly adjust to comply as it is in everyone’s interest to do so. At first, because things have gotten so out of hand here, there may be a little longer learning curve but I doubt much. After that I believe you will find moderator intervention is rare. Yes, there will always be a few bad apples but they will either adapt or be ask to move on. If you feel a moderator is a problem, you would contact Inventables and make your case. They can make the call and replace the moderator if found necessary.

On rethinking this, perhaps a hybrid selection process would serve well. Have members make nominations for moderators to a offline posting. Once a pool of candidates is developed Inventables staff can review post by the individuals and make the choice.

Reading how a person ask questions and replies to others can reveal a lot about their demeanor. Are they normally helpful without being condescending. Do they tend to become combative when their suggestions or views are not to shared by others. There are a lot of good people here and I am sure many of them would make excellent moderators. But still at first for Inventables it will be somewhat of a leap of faith in the selection. The fail-safe is if a mistake is made they would have the power to correct it.

ALSO, one rule that is strictly followed on the forum I mentioned is if a member steps out of line other members do not confront them on the forum. They contact the moderator offline and explain the situation. If the moderator agrees he then contacts the person in question - again offline - and a solution is reached. There is never open back and forth accusations or degrading comments. This serves no one and sours the appeal of the forum.

No, this doesn’t mean there can’t be the good natured ribbing as that is part of the fun but hey, we all know the difference when it crosses the line.

Whatever is decided on, the key component needs to be transparency.

You can’t just close threads and not state why it’s being closed. How else will people learn what is not considered appropriate?

You also can’t suspend/ban people without explaining why or even telling them.

You also need to explain why a post crosses a line (and which line) when either editing said post or asking for a post to be edited.

Your guidelines also need to not be up for interpretation. If one day a comment is okay but the next day, since the moderator found out he’s getting laid off in 3 weeks, the comment now isn’t okay and he bans the user because he’s had a bad day.

There should be clear cut rules to follow and when they aren’t followed, action must be taken to rectify the situation.

And seriously, the next time one user manages to ■■■■ off numerous regular members and that one user isn’t banned…this forum will once again be revisiting this entire thing yet again, just probably minus a few more members.

And finally, no…changing the categories of the forum won’t fix the problems here. You need effective, transparent, unbiased moderation to fix the problems here. Some of us can mostly ignore the problems, but others will be vocal in their own way. And effective != stricter

A little self moderation probably wouldn’t hurt either.

If the response that you are typing is not an answer to the question proposed or a pointer to more information about the question that is posed then your response is most likely inappropriate.

If the post is not a question (Hey, look at this neat thing I just did!) an opinion is asked for. There are nice ways to express opinions both agreeing and disagreeing.

Derogatory comments to written text are almost always inappropriate (you may be writing to a child or foreign language individual).

As you are typing your response, consider how you would feel if someone were to send that response to you.

I could go on all night. To sum it up a little common courtesy goes a long way in the positive direction, derision and name calling go much further in the negative direction.

And late to the game or not, hats off to @Zach_Kaplan for his attempts to turn things around.

How many companies do you know of where the CEO of the company gets involved with the customer base, 1 on 1?

The best candidates for moderators are those that are wise enough not to be moderators.