Ponybooru Moderation Feedback

@Zaknel
 
@Anonymous #9892
 
 
Sorry for the late response, there has been quite a bit of discussion among the staff on hidden staff and privacy concerns among those users, when Ponybooru was first launched we had a number of mods, both hidden and not to keep the site together while in its infancy. Some of these users have not been active in the past few months (Life gets in the way).
 
Currently, we have removed the inactive mods powers and tools for the site, on the site staff list–what you see is what you get; No mods are currently outside of the list.
 
As for inactive staff features; we currently do not see the need for it. The site is not quite big enough to need it as a priority, if and when the number of staff grows enough to track who is active or not; we may re-visit this decision.

to add on to what the cotton and sapphie have said, here is the full list of staff members.  

@Luzion  

 
This is very helpful, I believe.

@Sapphie  

 
What about our privacy concerns? We should know who has been able to access our data. Or is this transparency thing a lie?

@CottonCoax  

 
You need it. You got caught lying to our faces about transparency when you had secret staff. If you do not add the feature we can not know if you add more hidden staff. You broke trust and should add it to ensure it does not happen again.
 
If is very easy to add too. Derpibooru is open source and you can copy their code. It would take only moments. The only reason you would refuse is if you think it would get in your way.

@Anonymous #9892  
We are still in discussion on this topic, however; per our privacy policy all users are subject to data collection. I do not believe violating another users privacy simply to alleviate a users concern is in anyones best interest. We simply do not have a policy in place to cover these concerns. Violating one persons rights does not magically fix a transparency issue. Im working on writing moderation transparency policy, however; once its in place, previous moderators would not have consented to said policy. I, in good faith cannot hold them to a policy that did not exist. This is of my opinion, not an official or final statement on the matter.

@Anonymous #9892  
We don’t need something to indicate inactive staff, but we do need to disable the ability to have hidden staff.

@Sapphie  
Same principle. There’s either being a staff (having access to admin options), or not being a staff (not having access to admin options), you can’t be “inactive” staff (i.e. “staff but no access”) and hence everyone on staff should show up on the page.
 
Seriously, why was this not copied right off the bat?

@Barhandar  
I’m just saying it’s unnecessary to have a flavour feature like that. If we want a user to appear “inactive” but still be staff, we can currently have them change their personal title to “unavailable” or something like that. Alternatively, we can just strip them of staff tools for the time of their inactivity.
 

 
No clue. It doesn’t seem very important, but it doesn’t seem like a big deal either

This is a rough draft of the moderation policies I have written up  
https://ponybooru.org/pages/TestingPG2
 
I only just recently shared this with the staff that are online and the question of logging deleted comments came up. So Im going to create a strawpoll for people to give feedback on.  
The two major schools of thought right now are  
Our current practice is to provide a copy of the text that was deleted, so long as it doesnt contain sensitive information  
“We need to audit log everything for transparency purposes”  
and “We need to find a good balance so the audit log doesnt become a public shaming thread”  
https://www.strawpoll.me/43972052

Is there any update on staff not being vitriolic?

@Zaknel  
Nobody ever said we had to be pleasent, this isnt derpibooru.

@CottonCoax  
Correct me if I’m wrong, but do you think that being unpleasant is a good thing?

@CottonCoax  
“What is professionalism”

@Zaknel  
Its neither a good thing or a bad thing.
 
We are trying to respond to feedback and facilitate change for the site, with plenty of discussion between the modship. There will be no pleasing everyone with what changes we make, there will be those who are more vocal than others on what policy changes we may make.
 
I’m just here to facilitate change. (And be critical about it too) and make sure the site doesn’t burn down as a result.

@Anonymous #4175
 
If you want a professional clout chaser, go to derpi. We are trying to be our honest selves here with what transparency we have and wish to implement, sometimes that means you get an honest response.

@CottonCoax  

 
No, actually, something as significant as that is not gonna be neutral. That is about how you interact with users here. Is that a good thing or a bad thing in your eyes?

@CottonCoax  

 
Zizzy and CW don’t make for good rolemodels in user communication.

@Zaknel
 
It’s my honest opinion. It doesn’t reflect on all the staff here, but if we are responding instead of ignoring users, I see that as a step towards something better; Despite the prickliness of a response.

@CottonCoax  
So your opinion is that any amount of vitriol should be treated as completely neutral, despite Zizzy here saying earlier in this thread that he will respond to anything he perceives as vitriol by being vitriolic?

@CottonCoax  

 
Does with all the admins though.

@Zaknel  
I cannot speak for or condone Zizzy’s practices and can only be responsible for my own. I do not believe assholery should be responded in kind, but sometimes a response can be regarded in that way, and if a user has a history of responding that way–all posts can be seen like that.
 
I myself am not a very active forum member, nor do I enjoy the clout of my position. I keep my head down and respond as needed. Even if it comes off like some government bureaucrat

@CottonCoax  
Well, saying that you feel you, and the rest of staff, feel entitled to be as vitriolic as you want because it is neither good or bad… It kind of does not give off a good feeling, if you know what I mean.

I’m just gonna recap here.
 
@ZizzyDizzyMC is Zizzy publicly accusing the userbase for something which is later confirmed that to not be true, and he never said anything in further response to this. Like, I don’t know, maybe saying that it was a mistake of him to accuse them of that. Nope. No indication that he will not do that again.
 
 
@ZizzyDizzyMC says that if Zizzy ever feels that you are being vitriolic, he will respond with the same vitriol, despite not providing a reason for why he thinks that that is a good idea. He just says it, and does not seem to care for my explanations why that is unhelpful.
 

 
@CottonCoax and records Cotton saying that the staff on here do not have to be pleasant for their users. And then he follows it by saying in @CottonCoax that this is not a good thing or a bad thing.
 

 

 
Can you all just think about this for a minute, please?

@Sapphie  
It’s pretty fucking important, see #9892’s post on why.  
@Luzion  
Automation is good, and removes the majority of user error. Just make sure your codemonkey isn’t brain-damaged in the wrong way. No automation=even less trust as people suspect the staff that are public of not logging and the staff that aren’t public are automatically not logging.  
If content removed is really so big of an issue, then don’t autopublish the content in the log (though this requires a janny that’s impartial and willing to actually defend when they do something that riles up others, which is a rare find indeed.)  
@CottonCoax  
Loathe as i am to admit it, Zaknel’s got a point, you don’t have the trust backing you guys right now for that sort of stance to be the new one, and Zizzy doesn’t have it especially to return eye-for-eye.