James_Puckett
108.6.225.223
For now Typeboard is invite only. This was done to keep the whole thing from blowing up until I am sure that people are interested, that spam can be controlled, and that the system works. And of course I will need moderators.
My long term plan is to open up to the public once things are well tested. If people really want to have an invite-only system that can also be done, although that seems like something most people don’t want.
To invite people, click on your user name in the far right of the menu at the top of the screen. Click on “My Invitations” in the left hand menu and a pop-up will allow you to send an invite. Right now members are limited to inviting five users per month, this is to keep growth slow and make sure that a host of spambots cannot descend upon us.
davelab6 March 9
187.136.121.179
'My long term plan is to open up to the public once things are well tested' - great
JMontalbano
74.66.67.44
Historically there have been a number of personalities who, through their incessant nature, have rendered useless previous discussion forums. If this thing goes public how do you manage those destructive personalities?
James_Puckett
108.6.225.223
If this thing goes public how do you manage those destructive personalities?
They will be banned from posting entirely. Destructive types are fairly uncommon; I can only think of four egregious offenders in the six years that I have used Typophile, all of whom were treated with kid gloves. For this reason TypeBoard already has rules in place blocking users named “Hrant Papazian” and “Richard Fink”.
stewf
98.248.212.30
The more difficult question: how do you define a destructive personality?
stewf
98.248.212.30
BTW, I believe that posts credited with a full name (rather than user name) is a requirement for a professional forum. I don't even see an option for it here.
nickster
174.117.5.119
Public, real names, and no “destructive personalities”.
Destructive personality = ad hominem remarks.
Caveat quaestor: how do you ensure that advice is “professional”?
JMontalbano
74.66.67.44
I agree with full names. And no option for changing a username in midstream! Ha!
kentlew
67.142.162.24
JMontalbano: you funny!
James_Puckett
108.6.225.223
BTW, I believe that posts credited with a full name (rather than user name) is a requirement for a professional forum. I don't even see an option for it here.
Good point. I will look into implementing full names.
The more difficult question: how do you define a destructive personality?
Nick’s point about ad hominem remarks is an excellent definition. Additionally I would include users who habitually argue with experts despite having little or no expertise and people who are just plain crazy. It is probably also important to consider what users actually give back to the community. David Berlow and John Hudson habitually hijack threads into long-winded sparring matches. But those arguments often contain nuggets of wisdom.
Comments
> I really think moderation is the key. Typophile would be much better if it had that, as would the old mailing lists.
I can’t disagree with this. But, as Stephen observed before (I didn’t scan the reconstructed comments to see if this survived), this is easier said than done.
Having been a moderator for large groups before (not online forums, granted, but real-live groups and communities), I can say that it is a challenging and thankless task, and I suffered severe burnout at one point.
It was as a result of this previous experience that, when volunteering to help with Typophile’s spam problem a couple years ago, I made it explicitly clear that I would not act as a moderator. This is why I continue to characterize the role I play there as “janitor” or “custodian.” I just clean up the hallways. I have no interest in personally trying to manage, police, or adjudicate people’s behavior.
I offer this observation as a personal caution. Moderation may indeed be the key to maintaining a more civilized forum; but you will want to create an adequate structure to support those who elect to be moderators.
And be mindful, it can also be a slippery slope from public order to police state.
threads is not exactly the same as being in the type business.»
That seems like a mighty circular argument. «You may not care about seniority, but I'm more senior»? :-)
Sorry, but I'm not impressionable by stuff like that. I'm impressionable by sense.
John Boardley's mute feature idea or the up-/downvoting sound reasonable to me; but I think it should be individual: so that if I can hide/down-vote someone, then I personally don't see his posts, but it's not that no one sees his posts or he can't post anymore. We don't want a lynch mob, we want an optimal reading/discussing environment, right? At least that's what I'd hope and expect.
I maintain that we should be grown-up enough to accommodate people with different communicative styles, just as we can accommodate people with different approaches to drawing type. And if you're more senior, that shouldn't be an excuse to be acting less grown-up, should it?
I was going to add the following:
Of course you can decide that my opinion doesn't matter to you, but I know for a fact I'm not alone in this corner of the room (and not alone with Hrant, either).
BTW, I still think that these good ideas re. moderation, voting, muting, etc. should happen on Typophile, not on a new forum. If Punchcut doesn't have the resources, do you think they would object to outside help? You, James & James, seem to have a lot of time and energy. Why not work with them, and on the basis of what we already have?
In addition, Hrant is why I left the ATypI list.
Nina mentioned John Boardley’s mute feature suggestion. It’s a good idea, and I will look into it. It would work well with people like Uli Steele. My concern is that in the case of a Hrant, he could just keep arguing with different people, leading to a bunch of people muting each other just to keep threads going, and the community falling apart. I realize that banning some users will drive away people who are willing to deal with those users, but I think that not banning them will drive away many more. It also gets to be a problem for the forum mods and administrators—one Typophile user had real mental problems and it eventually evolved into off-list harassment of mods and Punchcut employees. I think an early ban would have been better.
Regarding disruptive users, what if there were a system in which different "levels" of punishment were in place. The first offense would yield a cap on the number of daily posts, the second would be a banning for a specified duration, leading to an eventual permanent ban.
Certainly if you do have moderators there needs to be a thread that all members are forced to read when they join telling them what to do and not to do.
Also, I really like the buttons. Something that should keep all the one word responses from happening.
I agree with @Typegirl that moderation is not an easy job. I'd go even further and make people read the rules and click "I agree", not just a sticky with rules. If the buttons can take care of a few problems and put less strain on moderators, that'd be nice. Why not have moderators taking turns so they can rest every now and then?
How about a + and - system...
When you get a certain amount of (+) on a comment (being "agree", "like", "insightful", etc.) that specific comment could be highlighted and marked as "featured". Maybe the highlight could even have different shades according to the amount of (+) assigned. This way, people who crave fame have the possibility of getting it by posting sensible things and not just flooding all the threads with useless remarks and people who are just scanning a thread could get the best information quickly.
If a comment gets too many (-), it would get hidden and it would mention if it is off topic or offensive. People could click to show it if needed to make sense of the conversation or it could eventually be removed by a moderator.
Based on a history of (+) or (-), a member could be assigned a number of stars and eventually be considered for moderation. Comments could be treated individually (not everyone makes sense everyday!) and results could be averaged per user for newcomers to get an idea on the person.
Buttons are nice as a first line of defence but I think moderation is unavoidable in the end for all the exceptional or repetitive cases. Members agree to rules and someone trusted has to take decisions and apply the rules, whoever the offender is (newbie, senior, celebs... rules should apply to everyone). I feel it's best to leave subscription open, all forums need new blood eventually and people can learn a lot from just being able to read the threads.
Some context on my last experience of Typophile : I'm not a heavy poster, I tend to sit back and read and keep to asking only my toughest questions. I'm not a Hrant hater either, I always felt like I had the choice to listen to his opinion or not, like everyone else's. Last time I posted on Typophile, I submitted a type education project for critique, thinking it would be nice to be more in touch with other type educators. An established member proceeded to get me personally and publicly flamed for posting it, saying I was trying to get others to do my work. Somehow, his remark even ended up on Typophile's twitter feed for the world to see. A few members told me to report the incident. After doing so, I never got any replies from moderators and everything is still there with my real name which can probably be googled by my students or employers. This really killed Typophile for me.
I'm glad it's up for all the great information it contains, I also think it's great to be able to get a real critique somewhere from people who are competent and have fresh eyes on a project. But I think respect should be valued above anything else, even the greatest masters were beginners at some point and benefit of the doubt should be given if someone is not abusing help on the forum.
If I check my Typophile postings and got 50 spam posts to threads which I took part in, the site becomes useless. If the moderators only get active after 2 people have gotten in a fight over 2 two days, than getting in that fight is already too late.
It's all about clear rules. You don't need people to force to read the rules, they just need to be there. For Typografie.info we collected a list of all things that can cause trouble and described which action would cause which punishment. Whenever someone behaves badly, we just link to the list and he knows what to expect for each action: getting a first/second warning, being not able to post for certain period of time, having deleted certain parts or entire posts and so on.
This makes a very big difference! If you mess with people’s posts or accounts without such clear rules, they will go nuts and behave even more badly. But if you give them a warning and they still deliberately brake the rules, then its their own fault. (And you don't feel so bad for being the bad guy.)
But »being people’s mom« in an internet board is just necessary. A few people can ruin a board for hundreds or thousands of users. Someone needs to be in charge and act quickly and consistent for the »health« of the community. And that’s where Typophile failed in the last years.