Ponybooru Moderation Feedback

@Zaknel
 
It does not have to be vitriolic, I do like an honest response, though sometimes they could be better conveyed. I myself cannot fake my way into what I may feel, though I try my best to phrase it in a way where there can be understanding and further conversation.
 
But at the same time, I cannot/will not control how others may speak/respond. Everyone has a personal responsibility for how they appear publicly and it is only my job to step in when rules are broken or the user in question becomes truly problematic.

@Boxless
 
My personal opinion does not reflect on the rest of the site.

@Boxless  
9892 explains how it’s important that we shouldn’t be able to have hidden staff (which I agree on). I just don’t get how that correlates with being able to mark staff as inactive (which seems like a purely cosmetical thing to me)

@CottonCoax  
@CottonCoax  
So if I understand correctly, if there was a vote that reads, “Should we, as the staff, try not to be vitriolic with our userbase consciously and deliberately?” You would vote “No?”

@Zaknel
 
If vitriol is all you are focused on, I would vote yes.
 
But I am not in favour of effectively censoring a user–Even if it is a mod/admin. I would as much watch them speak at length of the good things in the world as much as I would watch them dig their own hole with their bad options and takes.
 
That isnt to say if they were staff action wouldn’t be taken, but I’m not going to shoot the horse before the proverbial race.

@Sapphie  
Inactive is Derpibooru’s tag for inactive staff. It means their staff banner is hidden but they still have staff tools.
 
I think that anyone who has staff tools should be listed on the staff page. Also there should not be any way to have staff tools and not be on that page, like how Zippy Squirrel did.

@CottonCoax  

 
This directly contradicts what you said earlier.
 
@CottonCoax  

 

 
First you said it was a neutral thing, now you say it is a bad thing?
 
Cotton, you keep talking about the staff behaving independently to serve the purpose of this website. Them behaving wildly differently from one another. Zizzy being vitriolic whenever he deems it appropriate, whereas another staff member does not try to be vitriolic at all.
 
These are too different from one another. Users are gonna get mixed impressions from this attitude. And as much as I am sure you are aware that I dislike Zizzy’s attitude of “do to others as they have done to you,” at least if all of you followed that logic everyone could expect that from you all.
 
With this attitude you are portraying of letting other staff members do as they please and possibly dig their own hole, you do not seem to realize that that hole isn’t just for them. It’s for all of staff. And even the ones who do not agree with the ideology at all are gonna be thrown into it.

@Zaknel
 
The vitriol in this instance is only a bad thing if observed in a vacuum, nothing I say from here or ever will please everyone, I’ve already accepted that fact a long time ago, with whatever context the vitriol was in matters; just like with any other report.
 
We already try our best to keep each other in relative check when it comes to moderation, but personal responses and opinions I care not for, if anything I will protect their right to an opinion, even if it is damaging to our reputation. But that isn’t to say action may be taken as a result.
 
Not everyone will agree and thats fine. I simply have my own opinion on the matter.

 
Not sure why this part is so hard to understand  
Also adding this quote from Curtained to showcase what not to do when responding to complaints about reversing a rule change  

@Anonymous #6039
 
Curtained Wizard has not been a part of the staff for quite a while, though as much as people love to use him as an example of “Bad moderation” he hasn’t been in the picture since we have set up the site.

@CottonCoax  
But we’re not observing this in a vacuum.
 
Zizzy has stated that the reason he feels entitled to be vitriolic is because he feels other people are being vitriolic to him. And he has accused users in this thread of driving a staff member to go silent for a while, and said nothing when that staff member told him that this was not true.
 
None of that is in a vacuum. We know that Zizzy does these things. And I tried previously to explain to him that vitriol doesn’t make other vitriols go away. It just makes everyone irritated.
 
If I could solve my problems with my supervisors yelling at me for being physically weak by insulting them as harshly as I could, I would have done that. But I don’t because it just makes everyone unhappy.
 

 

 

 
The rest of this is not addressed at the staff as much as my general thoughts.
 
I see everyone here talking about their issues with the staff here, but I am beginning to think that any and all of the issues here are just symptoms of a much larger problem. And that problem is that most of them do not seem to think about how a common user would think of what they are doing. They forget that how the general public views them might not be how they view themselves. Basically, I think their problem is not trying to empathize with their users. Resulting in, well, everything that has been said in this thread, pretty much.

@Zaknel  
Look im gonna be blunt because it needs to be said.  
Offense is taken not given.  
Should our moderation team act like perfect politicians or businessmen and have to overthink every opinion they have? No I dont think so  
I’d like to see my team act more professional, but they still deserve the freedom to express their opinions in their own ways. If you believe you are being targeted by staff members on the basis of harassment, please do let me know.
 
The line between shitposting and abusive staff is certainly blurry. Ive considered making a user level account so I can express my opinions more freely without people assuming im making official statements. But thats not something I will ever require of my team.

@Zaknel  
I’m of the opinion that, while it’s in our best interest, as staff, to remain civil, we shouldn’t have to turn the other cheek.

@Zaknel  
Whatever happened to neutrality? It’s better than white Knight good and chaotic bad.

@Zaknel  
At least your duck badge isn’t real. Besides, Ponybooru is all about being neutral, not good or bad. It all depends on the individual and that means you. I don’t always agree with you, you don’t always agree with me. Got it memorized?

@TheGlitchedWolf  
This is neither feedback nor appropriate for the thread.
 
Please do make some attempt at keeping with the theme of the thread.

2 days late but i love bringing up old drama  
what i don’t get is why it’s always the same excuses for defending shadow mods, not just here but on derpibooru too  
“they want privacy” and “they don’t want to be contacted for staff related reasons”  
maybe just don’t be a mod then?
 
at the very least, if they don’t want people off-site to know they’re a moderator on the evil nazi pony site or whatever, why don’t they just use an alias? zippy did it on derpi so people on 4chan wouldn’t know he’s a mod there, people could just do the same thing here

I know it’s off topic but the id numbers are off on this:  

@Perplexia  
As far as aliases go, forethought isn’t always everyone’s specialty or at least I assume, but I can’t speak for everyones reasoning.
 
As for not wanting to be contacted, it’s simply that people who can’t fill an obligation temporarily don’t want thier inboxes being filled with help requests that will fall on deaf ears for an indeterminate amount of time.
 
The only justification I’ve ever given for shadow mods was just as a cp neighborhood watch if you will, but between misunderstanding and just bad PR, things got out of hand.
 
We’re still consider avenues of appropriate cp monitoring that are both transparent, but efficient as acting as a deterant for would be trolls or whoever that would intentionally post illegal content on our site.
 
My whole thought process was and still is, if a would-be troll wants to post something illegal, it can be quickly removed if they don’t know which staff is online. I’ll be frank that’s pretty paper thin logic. I think I’ve said enough on this topic and probably have opened myself up to further criticism with glaring holes in my logic and story. An astute reddit is probably writing up a response as we speak lmao.
 
To clarify I don’t personally want shadow mods either.

@Luzion  
something worth considering is a way to contact the staff team outside of messaging specific users, similar to the report system but not exclusive to images/comments/posts  
i believe on derpi before the proper infrastructure for DNPs was introduced, you had to report your own profile and request to be added to the list, so maybe something like that could work for things requiring immediate mod attention that aren’t related to rules violations or takedown requests?
 
as for illegal content, it sounds like the solution is just having more moderators who are consistently active on the site (much like acres, napsack and sapphie), though i figure that’s easier said than done
 
i’m really not trying to sound like i’m being critical of the site, i’m just trying to help find solutions to these issues from the perspective of a user

@Perplexia  

 
Hey no worries, I just feel right now I have to address things sort of broadly because we’re under some intense scrutiny, or at least that’s how I’m perceiving it right now

@Luzion  
And I thought this place is supposed to have less scrutiny.

@TrukkinDuck  
This is the biggest alt-booru. The least scrutiny is on booru.bronyhub, which have the least amount of users.

@TrukkinDuck  
Less scrutiny isn’t necessarily a good thing. That’s how you get assholes like the Derpi staff. You want people to scrutinize everything; if there’s nothing to hide, the scrutiny uncovers nothing.