Community moderation

[dhn]

As I mentioned before, http://www.slashdot.org" target="_blank is one of the biggest and oldest computer science communities and it works on such a system.

(...)

On slashdot, threads are often huge, with hundreds or thousands of posts each. People vote positively or negatively on each post, and with enough votes, each post is assigned a value, from -5 to +5 (or something similar, I don't recall). When browsing a thread, you can set a threshold, so for example, you can choose to read only messages with a +3 or higher. That way you don't waste your time reading through 100 trash posts only to get to the 6 or 7 good ones. Plus, all the good and bad votes end up reflecting on the user.

If you reread the first page of this topic you will notice that advocated the Slashdot system when this was first dicsussed over two years ago. But that was not what my question was about. I asked whether you know a system where karma is a good enough representation of a user's popularity and community participation.

Again, the only advantage a user on Slashdot has for a good karma is that his post might be read by more people. The user itself does not receive any karma count or benefits from it (but a slight advantage of posting with a +2 IIRC). That works very well for Slashdot indeed. Combined with the good ideas of only moderating posts in topics you do not participate in, only a number of moderation points every few weeks, and meta moderation.

What people in here want is that the user earns the karma, and it is not only the post itself that benefits. And that is something that I haven't yet seen done well.

[Highway of Life]

And again, if you where my friend at a certain board (STG? ), I'd give you + karma every day. Not because you're posts are excellent, but because I like you.

Why thank you, spambot. How kind.

Highway of Life, you said you speak from experience that your method works, do you use this on your boards or visit a board that does? It sounds interesting.

Yes, I post on a board that uses that system.

My only concern would be once karma levels reach a certain level, would they will grow too fast and basically have an inflation problem? What do you think about daily reducing karma levels for everyone by a certain value or percentage so posters can not jsut hold on to their karma indefinately but have to proactively maintain it?

Well, They don't deflate, they only inflate, so yes, people who have been active on that forum for the last three years, and have over 5,000 posts... their Karma is usually between 10,000 and 20,000+

Soundboy: Another thing to remember, is that even though YOU might have 5,000 posts, it does NOT benefit YOUR Karma to post a bunch of useless posts. The only thing that 5,000 posts would do, is when you clicked on another users [+], it would give them 50+ (or 5+ depending on the system you use) Karma Points. So it would only benefit other users, and not yourself.
So basically, even a poster who has 5,000 posts, has been registered for two years... if they post nothing but rubish, no one will add Karma to them, so they can have a Karma level of "0".
Which itself speaks bad enough as it is.

[Klors]

I think this thread (and the many threads there have been about such systems) demonstrate nicely why a Karma or rating system isn't such a great idea for the core phpBB features.

Everyone has a different idea of how they want Karma(etc.) to affect their forum and of the best way of going about it. I know that some of the main forums I post on would quickly die a death if the users were allowed to either rate posts and/or users. There are just too many in-crowds/cliques/groups of friends all willing to try and wreck the other's status (were there to be one) any way they can.

This, to me, suggests that any system you put in place in the core phpBB would be wrong for a large proportion of the phpBB installs. As such, it's just going to be bloat for most boards and thus turned off.

It would seem more appropriate to leave them to mods. I remember the Karma system here

[Lieutenant Clone]

First reading this far into the thread, I notice this has turned into a disscussion of user karma, where it was about points (+-) for posts not users. I belive the system mentioned in the first post is a good system, if combined with light moderation. And besides, if a post was sunk to a very low score for no reason, the points could be whiped off it by a moderator.

Someone mentioned Digg only being able to have positive votes. Did I not see a 'bury this post' button there?

To Highway of Life, About post counts affecting karma, I used to agree with you that they should, but then I thought for a minute and it doesnt make sense. Post counts should not directly affect karma, but they do affect it indirectly. For every post a user makes, that is one more chance to earn karma. so by having more posts than everyone, you have a much greater chance of getting karma, than someone who only posts a couple times.

[Highway of Life]

First reading this far into the thread, I notice this has turned into a disscussion of user karma, where it was about points (+-) for posts not users. I belive the system mentioned in the first post is a good system, if combined with light moderation. And besides, if a post was sunk to a very low score for no reason, the points could be whiped off it by a moderator.

Though... again, this is better for non-forum type boards.
I mean, imagine a forum where using votes, some posts whould disappear (deleted), so a guest user comes along, and is reading a discussion, but it appears really odd, since there seem to be holes in it.
That is why it's not a good idea. Posts should not just disappear, that's why the Moderators have the power to delete posts if need be.

So then, what if they don't just disappear... then let me ask, what is the point of a Karma system?
Where it's about ranking posts good or bad... what for? what good would it do?
It would server more purpose as a Moderation tool, but then see point number one why this is a bad idea.

To Highway of Life, About post counts affecting karma, I used to agree with you that they should, but then I thought for a minute and it doesnt make sense. Post counts should not directly affect karma, but they do affect it indirectly. For every post a user makes, that is one more chance to earn karma. so by having more posts than everyone, you have a much greater chance of getting karma, than someone who only posts a couple times.

LC, please read, or re-read post #152748.

[Lieutenant Clone]

I mean, imagine a forum where using votes, some posts whould disappear (deleted), so a guest user comes along, and is reading a discussion, but it appears really odd, since there seem to be holes in it.
That is why it's not a good idea. Posts should not just disappear, that's why the Moderators have the power to delete posts if need be.

Ahh, I suppose I didnt word that right. I agree with the system of rating posts, not with the system of having actions taken automatically based on that rating. Little misunderstanding there.

So then, what if they don't just disappear... then let me ask, what is the point of a Karma system?

Im not talking about a karma system.

Where it's about ranking posts good or bad... what for? what good would it do?

Interesting point. A warning could be dispatched to a user/moderator when a post hits a low level of points, if there is a low average for a thread, its icon could be changed to mark it as invaluable, vice versa for good threads. If joined with a karma system, users karma could increase slightly for a certian ammount of posts rated to be good. There are many possiblilites.

LC, please read, or re-read post #152748.

Ok. So dont affect the karma directly, instead how much karma they can affect. It doesnt matter either way, my point still stands. Why reward for 1000 posts, if they are 99% horrible? The post count will indirectly affect it anyway because as I said, it gives them more chances to earn good karma. Its like a lottery, the more tickets you buy, the better chances you have, but just because you buy x number of tickets does not mean you will be rewarded.

[Highway of Life]

Ahh, I suppose I didnt word that right. I agree with the system of rating posts, not with the system of having actions taken automatically based on that rating. Little misunderstanding there.
(...)
Im not talking about a karma system.

Okay, I see what you are saying... but since I'm talking about a Karma system, and you are talking about a rated-posts system (Community Moderation), I think we are blending two seperate thoughts/ideas into one...
But if this is not discussing the Karma feature, then we are violating forum rules, as this is not a future that phpBB3 has/will have. But probably instead a MOD, on the other hand, I think that karma will end up being a MOD anyways, but it is a future current to phpBB3. (look in the source code)

Interesting point. A warning could be dispatched to a user/moderator when a post hits a low level of points, if there is a low average for a thread, its icon could be changed to mark it as invaluable, vice versa for good threads.

Now that makes sense. Not as a Karma system, but as it's own system.

If joined with a karma system, users karma could increase slightly for a certian ammount of posts rated to be good. There are many possiblilites.

Okay, I could see that this would work...

Ok. So dont affect the karma directly, instead how much karma they can affect. It doesnt matter either way, my point still stands. Why reward for 1000 posts, if they are 99% horrible? The post count will indirectly affect it anyway because as I said, it gives them more chances to earn good karma. Its like a lottery, the more tickets you buy, the better chances you have, but just because you buy x number of tickets does not mean you will be rewarded.

Again, I suppose this would not work with the system you are proposing, but it would work for the Karma system... as I said, your post count would not affect you in ANY positive way, it would only affect your ability to add Karma to other users.

[soundboy]

"What good would ranking posts do?", you say? Well the rating system would be an excellent guide for moderators, providing pointers and bringing their attention where it's most needed. As I said before, flagging posts for deletion, rather than deleting them altogether. Posts should never just disappear, conversations could easily be misunderstood or not understood at all if posts are missing, I agree on that.

Now, the whole point I wanted to discuss was specifically community moderation (hence the title), more than just a karma system. And I'm not saying moderators should be abolished.. I don't think that forum socialism would work Instead, community moderation could be a very useful tool in giving a big helping hand to moderators. It's the same principle as reporting posts, only that its accumulative and incremental, and it can go both ways, either positively or negatively.

No action would be performed automatically, but the system could generate "suggestions" and the moderator would decide wether to take that action or not: deleting a post, banning a user, even recommending a user for moderator. This is a great help for moderators, especially on large forums where you can't be watching every single topic all the time.

But then again, even moderators would be vulnerable to the system; if they start abusing their power, users themselves could make a formal complaint, in the form of negative votes on the posts where the moderator is doing wrong.

I think in most boards, even though there are always trolls and spammers and just people who want to screw around, the majority of the people who post, they do it because they like the board, so in general, they will want to see the board do well, and will be willing to cooperate, and the whole system would be based around that. Abusers? Yeah they'll pop up too, but the system would be based on large numbers of votes in order for any actions to be taken, preventing a single user (or a few of them) to actually cause any harm with their limited number of votes.

[Lieutenant Clone]

How could a moderator abuse it any more than the system used now? They can still delete posts and ban users (depending on the power bestowed upon them).

[soundboy]

What I meant was that with a system like that, moderators wouldn't be invulnerable. If they go over the line and they're not being just (and they could, admins can't bee looking over moderators ALL the time), then users would have a way of complaining about it.