TFF Governance
- Thread starter TFF_Admin
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I agree with this, however there are a few cases where Mods/admins will have to occasionally do stuff outside of glaring issues. Like say Renaming stuff, moving threads to the correct area, or general forum cleanup like moving no dead forum sections into general topics or creating new forum sections for now popular fandoms.
While obviously these situations too should also be rare and it's fine to have a bit more leeway than glaring issues, it's also something they should be counted on to do when repeatedly requested by multiple users. Or if refused there should be a good reason why given. Like no One Piece section because it's unlikely to be all that utilized based on how little threads are being made about it.
While obviously these situations too should also be rare and it's fine to have a bit more leeway than glaring issues, it's also something they should be counted on to do when repeatedly requested by multiple users. Or if refused there should be a good reason why given. Like no One Piece section because it's unlikely to be all that utilized based on how little threads are being made about it.
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Oh, I figured stuff like moving threads or renaming stuff when requested was fairly obvious, so I left it out. Apologies.
Yes, mods will have to do a tad more than regular members, but for the most part they really shouldn't feel like its work. Because it isn't. Occasional issues like this can certainly pop up, and when they do I'm sure they could take the time to take care of it.
Yes, mods will have to do a tad more than regular members, but for the most part they really shouldn't feel like its work. Because it isn't. Occasional issues like this can certainly pop up, and when they do I'm sure they could take the time to take care of it.
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I see little to change from Shirotsume's current proposal.
Admin : one
Mods: Multiple, Low
Rotation: No (But if a mod hasn't signed in for the past 6 months, its valid grounds for impeachment - NOT banning them, just passing the mod baton to someone else)
And I whole-heartedly agree with the NEED for a "moderator" sub-forum. A place where anyone can talk about moderation issues. A place to complain about a mod/request impeachment ... etc.
EDIT: Is it just me, or is the "poll" missing? :-/
-chronodekar
Admin : one
Mods: Multiple, Low
Rotation: No (But if a mod hasn't signed in for the past 6 months, its valid grounds for impeachment - NOT banning them, just passing the mod baton to someone else)
And I whole-heartedly agree with the NEED for a "moderator" sub-forum. A place where anyone can talk about moderation issues. A place to complain about a mod/request impeachment ... etc.
EDIT: Is it just me, or is the "poll" missing? :-/
-chronodekar
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Since the moderation forum seems to be well-received, I would like to pose a question for it.
Should banned users be allowed to post in it- or at least a specific subsection? For appeals or somesuch. I'm imagining two levels of banned- standard banned for mods, and a higher level ban from an admin that bans the user from the moderation forum as well, to prevent spammers or hissy fits.
The upside is more transparency. The downside is the threat of spam/hissy fits if the admin is not present.
EDIT: Chronodekar: There isn't a poll here.
I don't want numbers, I can count for myself. I want to see what you guys think.
Should banned users be allowed to post in it- or at least a specific subsection? For appeals or somesuch. I'm imagining two levels of banned- standard banned for mods, and a higher level ban from an admin that bans the user from the moderation forum as well, to prevent spammers or hissy fits.
The upside is more transparency. The downside is the threat of spam/hissy fits if the admin is not present.
EDIT: Chronodekar: There isn't a poll here.
I don't want numbers, I can count for myself. I want to see what you guys think.
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Aren't people who are banned not able to log on? I don't actually know, since I've never been banned from anywhere.
If this is the case, they wouldn't be able to post anyway because they would be locked out of the forum altogether. I am not in favor of changing that.
If they appealed, it would have to be through a temporary account.
I could, on the other hand, be entirely mistaken. If bans mean that they can get in but can't post, then they should be able to appeal on the moderation forum.
Edit: But with that, I bid you all good night. See you tomorrow.
If this is the case, they wouldn't be able to post anyway because they would be locked out of the forum altogether. I am not in favor of changing that.
If they appealed, it would have to be through a temporary account.
I could, on the other hand, be entirely mistaken. If bans mean that they can get in but can't post, then they should be able to appeal on the moderation forum.
Edit: But with that, I bid you all good night. See you tomorrow.
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Normally, when you get "banned" from a forum, they won't delete your account. You can still log-in with the account and (depending on settings) can browse the forums, even send PM's to people (again, depends on settings). But you won't be able to post anywhere.
If you try, some message like "you do not have permission to do this" will come up.
I was once banned from the Dark Lord Potter forums ... within 30 minutes of registering and not even posting anything. For some weird reason, the forum decided that I was a bot! It didn't even let me browse a single thread. All I could do was "send admin an email".
A couple of days later, they wizened to the fact that their software was kicking out authors and personally invited me back in.
-chronodekar
If you try, some message like "you do not have permission to do this" will come up.
I was once banned from the Dark Lord Potter forums ... within 30 minutes of registering and not even posting anything. For some weird reason, the forum decided that I was a bot! It didn't even let me browse a single thread. All I could do was "send admin an email".
A couple of days later, they wizened to the fact that their software was kicking out authors and personally invited me back in.
-chronodekar
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Admin: One
Reason: You do NOT need multiple admins to run a forum. The job of the admin is to sort out the back end stuff, fixing general issues and keeping things running.
Mods: Multiple, Low
Reason: Mods are good, and having enough to cover all times of the day is a must, low because we don't want heavy policing on TFF.
Rotation: No
Reason: A lot of work vetting new mod candidates, and they'll be less effective until they understand everything they can and cannot do.
Reason: You do NOT need multiple admins to run a forum. The job of the admin is to sort out the back end stuff, fixing general issues and keeping things running.
Mods: Multiple, Low
Reason: Mods are good, and having enough to cover all times of the day is a must, low because we don't want heavy policing on TFF.
Rotation: No
Reason: A lot of work vetting new mod candidates, and they'll be less effective until they understand everything they can and cannot do.
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Admin: Two
Mods: Multiple, Low
Rotation: No
Forum: Yes
Accidents or circumstances may leave us temporarily or permanently bereft of an administrator. Unless there is a workable mechanism to mitigate that problem, I want two admins.
There is talk of appeals, impeachment and so on, and they all sound nice. But how would they be implemented? Would they require mods and admins to obey nTFF's social contract or is there some forum mechanism to enforce it all?
Mods: Multiple, Low
Rotation: No
Forum: Yes
Accidents or circumstances may leave us temporarily or permanently bereft of an administrator. Unless there is a workable mechanism to mitigate that problem, I want two admins.
There is talk of appeals, impeachment and so on, and they all sound nice. But how would they be implemented? Would they require mods and admins to obey nTFF's social contract or is there some forum mechanism to enforce it all?
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Count me in for an appeal section. The minecraft server I go into has a forum and a ban appeal and I do like the idea.
Admin: One
Mods: Multiple, Low (Maybe we can be assigned our own section? Multiple assigned sectors for the more frequently used sections like Naruto)
Rotation: no (Only rotating for lack of use or abuse)
Admin: One
Mods: Multiple, Low (Maybe we can be assigned our own section? Multiple assigned sectors for the more frequently used sections like Naruto)
Rotation: no (Only rotating for lack of use or abuse)
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Admin: Two.
One Admin, Admin. Like... The Admin!
The Second Admin would be an existing account with a procedure to somehow recover it.
Perhaps each mod chooses a character for the password, when a mod leaves remove that ones character, when a mod joins put in that mods character.
(Granted for that to work all mods would need to be active)... Just someway to recover admin rights.
Mods: Few, Low
Old TFF had little need for Mod's. The only difference should be to eradicate new members who are spamming advertisements. I'd even want to put in a provisio that members with less than 100 posts could be permabanned by mods, while users with more than 100 posts can only be temp banned by mods.
The decision to permaban someone with more than 100 posts should be a community driven decision, not done by the mods.
Rotation: Perhaps the beginning of each month each mod gets a "satisfaction" poll, drop bellow a given satisfaction, get replaced.
Replaced by election.
Additionally the Appeal / Moderation Record subforum would be needed for transparency.
In the case of an appeal, if any sitting mod agrees with the accused, no action is taken. Unanimous or nothing. (To get it closer to oTFF)
One Admin, Admin. Like... The Admin!
The Second Admin would be an existing account with a procedure to somehow recover it.
Perhaps each mod chooses a character for the password, when a mod leaves remove that ones character, when a mod joins put in that mods character.
(Granted for that to work all mods would need to be active)... Just someway to recover admin rights.
Mods: Few, Low
Old TFF had little need for Mod's. The only difference should be to eradicate new members who are spamming advertisements. I'd even want to put in a provisio that members with less than 100 posts could be permabanned by mods, while users with more than 100 posts can only be temp banned by mods.
The decision to permaban someone with more than 100 posts should be a community driven decision, not done by the mods.
Rotation: Perhaps the beginning of each month each mod gets a "satisfaction" poll, drop bellow a given satisfaction, get replaced.
Replaced by election.
Additionally the Appeal / Moderation Record subforum would be needed for transparency.
In the case of an appeal, if any sitting mod agrees with the accused, no action is taken. Unanimous or nothing. (To get it closer to oTFF)
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Hmm... Reconsidering it redundancy for the Admin would probably be a good thing as has been suggested. Don't want to end up in a situation like before where the admin up and disappears and mods aren't able to do the important shit. However at the same time it leaves us very open for something very bad to happen with multiple mods.
I suppose Schema's redundant admin idea would be best. Give each of the mods one part of the Admin's password that can only be used when all of them reveal it to the new selected admin and it gets properly put together. Mayhaps we should keep the current TFF_Admin account expressly for this purpose, changing the password as needed when mods change or the admin does. Get a sort of system going so we're never in a position where the lose of an Admin significantly restricts us again.
I suppose Schema's redundant admin idea would be best. Give each of the mods one part of the Admin's password that can only be used when all of them reveal it to the new selected admin and it gets properly put together. Mayhaps we should keep the current TFF_Admin account expressly for this purpose, changing the password as needed when mods change or the admin does. Get a sort of system going so we're never in a position where the lose of an Admin significantly restricts us again.
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Admin: Two - It allows for safeguards if one of the admins disappears, and it also makes it more difficult for the admins to abuse their power, since they can countermand each other if necessary. I'd say that bans (certainly permabans) should require them to both agree.
Mods: Multiple, Low - Basically the same reasons as everyone else has said. Lots of mods means less work for each one. At the same time, they should have relatively low power, to prevent abuse. Serious decisions (especially a permaban) should absolutely not be done without general consensus (I don't think even a direct vote is a good idea, because if the mods are that torn then the ban isn't really necessary). Having said that, the mods should have the power to hand out bans and delete posts, in order to deal with spambots and the like. It should just be made clear to them that they should not use it on normal users.
Rotation: no, but some sort of impeachment process would be a good idea - as much as I dislike the idea of over-powered mods, I think turning moderation into a popularity contest is worse still. But, even so, if a mod is genuinely seen as incompetent by the majority of people, they should be removed from power.
As for the discussion about banned users posting the moderator forum in order to appeal, it seems like a good idea to me. However, whether it is possible depends on the forum software. When you are banned, your account continues to exist, but different software handles banned users in different ways. If users are banned by placing them in a "banned users" group (which is, I think, how vBulletin does it), then it should be possible to alter the permissions of that group. However, if they are banned by marking them with a "banned" flag and denying them access (which is what phpBB does by default), I don't think it would work like that.
Mods: Multiple, Low - Basically the same reasons as everyone else has said. Lots of mods means less work for each one. At the same time, they should have relatively low power, to prevent abuse. Serious decisions (especially a permaban) should absolutely not be done without general consensus (I don't think even a direct vote is a good idea, because if the mods are that torn then the ban isn't really necessary). Having said that, the mods should have the power to hand out bans and delete posts, in order to deal with spambots and the like. It should just be made clear to them that they should not use it on normal users.
Rotation: no, but some sort of impeachment process would be a good idea - as much as I dislike the idea of over-powered mods, I think turning moderation into a popularity contest is worse still. But, even so, if a mod is genuinely seen as incompetent by the majority of people, they should be removed from power.
As for the discussion about banned users posting the moderator forum in order to appeal, it seems like a good idea to me. However, whether it is possible depends on the forum software. When you are banned, your account continues to exist, but different software handles banned users in different ways. If users are banned by placing them in a "banned users" group (which is, I think, how vBulletin does it), then it should be possible to alter the permissions of that group. However, if they are banned by marking them with a "banned" flag and denying them access (which is what phpBB does by default), I don't think it would work like that.
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On the suggestion of "two admins";
I am of the opinion that we should just have one admin and just have faith in him (or her) to do the job responsibly. Hawk left for his own reasons without passing the baton and the very fact that we somehow migrated without an admin approval once, means that we can do it again if necessary.
Something more practical would be to make backup copies of our forum database and have it sent to multiple locations (or users) every month or so. That way, if something goes wrong, the more technically inclined among us can revive the forum. I'm not fully sure if icyboards will support this for a free forum, but it should be worth inquiring about.
There are probably some security concerns I've missed with the above suggestion, but they shouldn't be insurmountable, can they?
-chronodekar
I am of the opinion that we should just have one admin and just have faith in him (or her) to do the job responsibly. Hawk left for his own reasons without passing the baton and the very fact that we somehow migrated without an admin approval once, means that we can do it again if necessary.
Something more practical would be to make backup copies of our forum database and have it sent to multiple locations (or users) every month or so. That way, if something goes wrong, the more technically inclined among us can revive the forum. I'm not fully sure if icyboards will support this for a free forum, but it should be worth inquiring about.
There are probably some security concerns I've missed with the above suggestion, but they shouldn't be insurmountable, can they?
-chronodekar
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We only migrated because one person, Shirotsume, created a bot to crawl the old TFF for it's contents and put it into database that could be imported, and talked the guys at icyboards into hosting us. Before this any attempts have failed miserably. Unless this bot is made publicly available, this is not something that is likely to happen easily again. So, no, I don't think a migration again would be an easy or likely task.
I believe that there should be two admins. If I was an only admin, walked out to the street and got hit by the mail truck, then the board would be screwed. Or sickness. Or financial problems that would cut off my internet. Or any of a myriad of other problems that would make an admin go away unexpectedly.
Mods: Multiple, but low and an odd number (3 or 5). It would be nice to have more so that the power of which could be mitigated to avoid a runaway ego. But frankly, I don't think people realize how much work policing could turn into if we manage to grow this, and with a large population comes a lot of possible asshats so we might not get enough people that WANT to do it AND have the best interests of the board at heart.
Rotation: No. You're either going to have the same people in the rotation or forcing people who don't want the job into it. People forced into a job they don't really want to do will do one of two things: Not do it, or make a mess of things so they never get chosen again. Either one is bad.
I believe that there should be two admins. If I was an only admin, walked out to the street and got hit by the mail truck, then the board would be screwed. Or sickness. Or financial problems that would cut off my internet. Or any of a myriad of other problems that would make an admin go away unexpectedly.
Mods: Multiple, but low and an odd number (3 or 5). It would be nice to have more so that the power of which could be mitigated to avoid a runaway ego. But frankly, I don't think people realize how much work policing could turn into if we manage to grow this, and with a large population comes a lot of possible asshats so we might not get enough people that WANT to do it AND have the best interests of the board at heart.
Rotation: No. You're either going to have the same people in the rotation or forcing people who don't want the job into it. People forced into a job they don't really want to do will do one of two things: Not do it, or make a mess of things so they never get chosen again. Either one is bad.
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My opinion on two admins: The problem with two admins is that we would have to trust someone to keep the backup admin account safe and sound who has password access to it- you can't change the password without having access. At that point, why not just trust the person with admin?
The next issue with backup admin is with the standard admin- they could just manually change the backup admin's password/email and take it over.
Finally, I'm just going to say that whoever becomes admin... we probably chose them for a reason. After TFF's history, I don't think admin abandonment will be an issue. Regarding acts of god, that's something that we shouldn't try to plan for imo. If nothing else, once the admin is chosen, we could get them to ask spork to see if he would be willing to pass the board onto a member of the boards choice, should the be admin go AWOL. To prevent another nicknumbers attempt, he will only pass it on to a member chosen by the majority.
tl;dr: I'm of the opinion that in it's current state, having and admin and a backup admin is physically just having two admins in the current implementation (a combination password would fail- someone has to SET that master password and then distribute the keys. Also, if mods go AWOL, we've lost the account.) It also allows a sense that one could just abandon their post, because the other admin could pick it up.
Next, how myBB bans work. A "Banned" member on myBB is just a standard user class, like Registered, with custom permissions, typically set to, by default, be able to view all threads, but not post threads, reply in threads, etc.
Finally: regarding backups. icyboards backs up twice a week, and to use that backup is free and will be done for us in the event of Shit Going Down. If we want the physical SQL backup itself, it will cost 20$. Please keep in mind- even if we get the backup, we have to find a host that can use that kind of a database, which is going to cost many, many monies just for importing the database, let alone the hosting. That's why we're on icyboards- they were willing to do it for free just so TFF could have a new home.
Finally: there are crawler bots available on the web. I cannot vouch for their reliability or speed.
The next issue with backup admin is with the standard admin- they could just manually change the backup admin's password/email and take it over.
Finally, I'm just going to say that whoever becomes admin... we probably chose them for a reason. After TFF's history, I don't think admin abandonment will be an issue. Regarding acts of god, that's something that we shouldn't try to plan for imo. If nothing else, once the admin is chosen, we could get them to ask spork to see if he would be willing to pass the board onto a member of the boards choice, should the be admin go AWOL. To prevent another nicknumbers attempt, he will only pass it on to a member chosen by the majority.
tl;dr: I'm of the opinion that in it's current state, having and admin and a backup admin is physically just having two admins in the current implementation (a combination password would fail- someone has to SET that master password and then distribute the keys. Also, if mods go AWOL, we've lost the account.) It also allows a sense that one could just abandon their post, because the other admin could pick it up.
Next, how myBB bans work. A "Banned" member on myBB is just a standard user class, like Registered, with custom permissions, typically set to, by default, be able to view all threads, but not post threads, reply in threads, etc.
Finally: regarding backups. icyboards backs up twice a week, and to use that backup is free and will be done for us in the event of Shit Going Down. If we want the physical SQL backup itself, it will cost 20$. Please keep in mind- even if we get the backup, we have to find a host that can use that kind of a database, which is going to cost many, many monies just for importing the database, let alone the hosting. That's why we're on icyboards- they were willing to do it for free just so TFF could have a new home.
Finally: there are crawler bots available on the web. I cannot vouch for their reliability or speed.
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