TFF Governance

[Raye_Terse]

Admins: Just how much power do different admin accounts have over each other? That's something I need to know before I can answer this.

Mods: Multiple, definitely. As for power level, where does the line go between short and long bans? Is a week a short ban, for example?

Rotation: No.

I agree that we should have an open moderating forum, and that mod-bans should be possible to appeal. Admin-bans should not be possible to appeal.

 

[Shirotsume]

Vexarian: It is actually possible- they're fine with the bot crawling icyboards, but it must do so at a reasonable rate. That's why my crawl took so long, I did it slowly enough per load that it looked no different from standard traffic- and THAT they have no issue with.

EDIT: raye: Admins are admins. The most we can do is have one root admin the others cannot touch, if that.

 

[Get-lost]

My own vote:

Admin: One to two
- I agree that giving too many people the power to possibly delete the forum is a bad idea. However, there could always be a case where one admin could be biased in a situation. Having another with equal power could potentially keep that in check. That said, One admin who we can truly trust to be impartial would be best.

Mods: Multiple. Lower Medium.
- Just a few weeks ago on Nexon's Vindictus forum, someone decided "Fuck you Nexon" and did everything in his god damn power to get banned. He spammed porn and hentai gifs in a bunch of threads, and it took around five hours (or so I heard) for a mod to come in and fix the problem. (It was Sunday. Apparently they don't work weekends or something at Nexon.) Mods NEED to be able to fix glaring and immediate issues, but Perm Bans should need to be reported to the Admin, who would be the only one with the power to actually do it. However, this is NOT a job.

I'll repeat for emphasis; This is NOT a job. We're not electing admins and mods so that they can go and micromanage and look for everyone who is putting a damn toe out of line. We're electing them so that IF we run into a GLARING issue that has entire sections going up in arms, we can DIFFUSE that situation.

When said situation is not present, mods should be no more than regular members with fancy titles.

Rotation: No.
- The only reason that a good mod should be switched out is that they personally decide to retire. All the same, a bad mod should be able to get impeached.

+1 This, We don't need any dictators, this is f'n TFF, not Spacebattles also known, to me at least , as the home of the Dictatorial Admins/Mods.

Edit: If not Admins doing the Perm banning maybe we could have something like upper mods that can perm ban only if at least 3 other Mods supported it.

 

[Sdebeli]

Man, this thing is alive... Kinda surprised and rather pleasantly.

Admin: One(acting)
However, I'd like to add something to this; call me paranoid, but I believe we need a backup of some sort, otherwise it's just inviting shit to happen. IF it's possible in some way, to have all the (multiple) mods have some way to, all together, temporarily access or better yet, appoint an admin, it would perhaps be a solution.

Mods: Multiple, Low-to-medium
Mods need some degree of freedom to keep the order. And having just one to no mods is a bad idea due to the size of the forum

Rotation: No
I disagree with the idea of a rotation, because I can't see a way for it to work well due first there not being an objective and fair way to select newcommers, as well as them requiring an acclimation period, plus the fact that there might not be better mods than the ones we have at that moment.

 

[Glimmervoid]

Man, this thing is alive... Kinda surprised and rather pleasantly.

Admin: One(acting)
However, I'd like to add something to this; call me paranoid, but I believe we need a backup of some sort, otherwise it's just inviting shit to happen. IF it's possible in some way, to have all the (multiple) mods have some way to, all together, temporarily access or better yet, appoint an admin, it would perhaps be a solution.

Well, there are ways that a backup admin password could be split between a number of mods such that a given number of them, working together, could reconstruct the password.

Say we have an admin account with the password 1234, and we have 5 mods. We then decide that 2 mods need to work together to get the admin password.

We can give each mod a shard by treating the password as a line.

Y = 1234X + 14 (14 being a random number).

We then create the mod shards as points on this line as so, (5, 6184), (11, 13588), (2, 2482), (7, 8652), (3, 3716).

Any single mod can't get the password but two working together can, just like you were taught in school. The number of shards needed can be increased by using a higher polynonimal.

Say (2, 2482) and (5, 6184) want the key. They use this formula as so... Admin password = m = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) = (6184-2482)/(5-2) = 1234

 

[Shirotsume]

You need to go into more detail- unless I'm misunderstanding you, the the approach you offer is not secure and could be cracked inside your head without even touching a calculator.

 

[Glimmervoid]

You need to go into more detail- unless I'm misunderstanding you, the the approach you offer is not secure and could be cracked inside your head without even touching a calculator.

It's called Shamir's Secret Sharing. The basic idea is you need at least two points to define a line, three to define a parabola, four for a cubic curve and so on. If you have only a single point ((5, 6184) for example) you simply do not have enough information to work out the equation of that line and hence the secret.

Any number of lines pass through the point (5, 6184). Without a second shard, you don't know which one you want.

 

[Shirotsume]

That is significantly different than what you suggested

 

[Glimmervoid]

How? I gave a simple example using only two points so I could explain how it works. I then went on to say that you could require more shards by using a higher order polynonimal. 2 you use a line, 3 parabola, 4 a cubic curve etc. About the only difference between what I explained and the wiki page is where exactly the secret is stored on the line (gradient vs y-intercept).

Edit: It seems I wrote polynonimal rather than polynomial. My bad.

 

[Shirotsume]

Ahh. You have a typo then, in your equation. 14 and 1234 should be swapped.

EDIT: just to make this clear, I agree with the general idea of a backup admin. But the execution of something like this should be hammered out, rock solid. There's a lot that could go terribly wrong. Shamir's Secret would work, but it appeared like you were saying "Yeah, we can just throw some math at it like this!"

 

[Glimmervoid]

Ahh. You have a typo then, in your equation. 14 and 1234 should be swapped.

EDIT: just to make this clear, I agree with the general idea of a backup admin. But the execution of something like this should be hammered out, rock solid. There's a lot that could go terribly wrong.

It doesn't matter when you're dealing with a line. The secret can be stored as either, since neither part can be worked out from a single point, but you are probably right. I should have done it the other way around so people could see how it extrapolates to a higher polynonimal more easily.

 

[Jakkun]

Admin: One or two. I do like the back up account though. Perhaps give the password to Spork or something. Or just get him an account so if something happens he can step in and appoint a new admin.

Mods: Multiple Low. All we really need is minor maintenance stuff and people to take care of emergencies. Impeachment is a good idea. No rotation, that just exponentially increases the odds of getting a bad mod. I think we should have a bunch though. There are a lot of boards, and this is a global forum. We can't always rely on users reporting things.

It may be a good idea for active admins/mods to be in an irc room so people can contact them, or they can debate appeals and such. Perhaps something like #TFF-Mods. If banned users want to try and appeal and don't want to do it on the board itself, it may be a good way.

I have been a mod before, and they do have private boards to discuss things. Part of that is to leave notes to other mods about users. I don't know if this forum system has the ability to leave a log attached to user accounts or not. I know some mod forums have threads for removed porn so the mods can view it if they want, IGN did this as they didn't allow porn on the boards at all. That isn't much of an issue here, as we have the lemon section for such things, and any porn that would not go there, such as CP would have to be deleted anyway. One of my favorite things about the mod forum was the This user is a Fucktard thread. In it the mods would post clipped things from the user in question showing their stupidity. It was fun.

 

[Dark Knight Gafgar]

EDIT: raye: Admins are admins. The most we can do is have one root admin the others cannot touch, if that.

Would you be adverse to taking the root admin account, then?

 

[esran]

im new here so my opinion probably doesnt count but:
admins one
moderators: multiple high power, but the admin can of course reverse their decisions if neccecary, and they shouldnt abuse their power.
i dont see a solution to the problem of the admin going rogue, we probably just have to choose one we hope wont.

 

[Shirotsume]

THE CURRENT RUNNING TOTAL AS OF NOW:

+---------+--------+----------------------+-------------+
|         |  One   |   Two/One w/ Backup  |    Three+   |
+---------+--------+----------------------+-------------+
| Admin:  |   22   |           11         |      8      |
+---------+--------+----------------------+-------------+
| ModLow  |    1   |           0          |      30     |
| ModMed  |    0   |           0          |       4     |
| ModHigh |    0   |           0          |       4     |
+---------+--------+----------------------+-------------+
| NoMod   |   1    |
| ModMulti|   1    |
+---------+--------+

Also, Ninsaneja, your post was vague enough that I didn't want to try and guess- could you clarify your stance?

EDIT: And for the love of god, feel free to fact check me. The last thing I want to happen here is a miscount.

 

[chronodekar]

Something's been bugging me for awhile now,

Those who advocated for a backup admin - is this the same as having a second admin?

Shirotsume has assumed it's the same (I don't blame him), but to me, a backup admin is just that. Someone standing by holding the spare keys to the vault. The backup is TRUSTED not to use his/her special privileges unless the main admin is struck down/out-of-commission. It can (and should be) a separate account.

For most regular use, the backup is simply the guy/gal who has root password and is TRUSTED not to use them unless the main admin steps down (naturally or by act of God). Obviously, knowledge of WHO the backup is, should be well-known.

If there are more who subscribe to this line of thinking, I think I might change my vote on the matter.

-chronodekar

 

[Shirotsume]

I can change the count if we wish- I just counted them the same because they result in the same thing- two admins.

EDIT: Sorry for the confusion- I meant a global we, not a me-you we.

 

[chronodekar]

I can change the count if we wish- I just counted them the same because they result in the same thing- two admins.

Not yet please. Let more people reply on the matter first. I don't want to needlessly increase the options if they disagree.

-chronodekar

 

[PCHeintz72]

Well how about this... is there a process or procedure to get a 2nd person named as a site owner or liason with IcyBoards that does not involve making a true 2nd admin for the site... in that case, it is still one site admin.

While I advocated 1 site administrator, and still do, I see nothing wrong with such a process if it exists. The main concern or need for such a thing is because of either death or sudden change of heart/desire on part of the actual admin. In absentia that other person would be able to ask or approach them on any issues that are not internal to us... such as a site downing or database corruption/collapse or something... For such things we would still want/need some contact or go between between here and the Icyboards people...

 

[Christopher Robin]

Let your wise lord and master, Cornuthaum, speak on this issue, that you may be enlightened:

Admins: Multiples

Mods: Multiples

Modly Powers: High

Rotation: Fuck no!

I second all this. I don't hang out on spacebattles, but I do hang out on the D20 forum on RPG.net, and the mods there are excellent.

 

[Coelacanth]

I'll just leave my thoughts on this right here.
Admin : one
Mods: Multiple, Low
Rotation: Yes, re-vote every year.

I also remember reading on having a strict appeals based forum for people who get banned. I agree to this.

I also think there should be a general rules quiz instituted to all future members regarding posting etiquette.

If they pass a certain amount of questions, then they get posting privileges, otherwise they can only view or something.

Thoughts?
_________
My old username was Dr.michael

 

[chronodekar]

I also think there should be a general rules quiz instituted to all future members regarding posting etiquette.

Needlessly complicates things. And what "etiquette" are we advocating here? This is TFF, not spacebattles. A place where its considered the norm to throw insults and derail threads*.

-chronodekar

* The irony, is that this is coming from a GUY who publicly cries if insulted.(Yes, it's happened. I know, I suck.)

 

[Avider]

Admin: Multiple.
Reason: Back up in case something happens, e.g. accidents or lack of computer access.

Mod: Multiple, High. Low.
Reason: Multiple mods are required for a forum of this size. Strength needs to be high in order for the mods to have the ability to quickly respond to urgent problems, i.e. the ability to moderate with need for a report. Any unruly mod(s) can only, at worst, set extremely long bans, which can be rectify relatively quickly anyways.

Rotation: No.
Reason: There's no need for a rotation, which will only complicate things. However, a mechanism for the removal of mods need to be in place, likely by the mods against the mods.

Forum: Yes.
Reason: Record keeping. Forum should be read only for the public.

 

[PCHeintz72]

A place where its considered the norm to throw insults and derail threads

I should point out that at least *I* do not consider this something to be take pride in ...

 

[Coelacanth]

I also think there should be a general rules quiz instituted to all future members regarding posting etiquette.

Needlessly complicates things. And what "etiquette" are we advocating here? This is TFF, not spacebattles. A place where its considered the norm to throw insults and derail threads*.

-chronodekar

* The irony, is that this is coming from a GUY who publicly cries if insulted.(Yes, it's happened. I know, I suck.)

What I'm referring to is just following the generally accepted unspoken rules we had from the beginning of time.