Moderation Transparency

[Emilie Jolie]

Piggy-backing on this offer by Paul as a reply to Piddy's post, I hope that's ok.

Firstly, thanks to all the moderation team. I had considered doing some volunteering but on second thought I actually don't think I have the skills required to become a moderator. I am far too involved and passionate in my (political, especially!) views to juggle different hats, as it were, and I don't want to feel like I am cautioning some of the less than savoury views posted on here.

To my point: in the interest of transparency, can a clearly signposted note outlining the moderation process be made visible and easily accessible to all the community, to dispel concerns of bias and reinforce trust between moderators and posters? 

Posters form bonds in and out of LS - I don't think that's a secret. I've done that. There is no reason to believe that posters who are also moderators are any different in that they too form bonds with fellow posters, especially those who have been posting for a long time. This is a particular concern for me as someone who is fiercely protective of my anonymity and privacy, and it's even more of a concern now we know there are posters who choose not to reveal they also are moderators. Now that all notes are being made accessible to the whole moderation team for transparency, I would want to know what safeguards have been put in place to protect the privacy of the information shared by posters in the form of notes to the moderation team. Asking for a friend, of course.

Thank you!

[poppyfields]

Great question Emilie!  As an immensely private person myself, more so than average probably, I would like to know too!

Up until a few days ago, my experience here has been amazing!

Issue has been resolved and hope moving forward my experience will continue to be amazing.

But I've learned a lot these past few days re all the safeguards in place that allow us to feel safe and comfortable.

I trust that holds true with respect to your concern as well.  

Great question! 

Edited June 15, 2020 by poppyfields

[Paul]

Hi Emilie,

Thank you for your question! 

On 6/13/2020 at 11:35 AM, Emilie Jolie said:

This is a particular concern for me as someone who is fiercely protective of my anonymity and privacy, and it's even more of a concern now we know there are posters who choose not to reveal they also are moderators. Now that all notes are being made accessible to the whole moderation team for transparency, I would want to know what safeguards have been put in place to protect the privacy of the information shared by posters in the form of notes to the moderation team.

I think you're referring to what happens to the notes sent in by people via the "report post" link. In other words, if you encounter a post that you want to bring to a moderator's attention, click the report post link, and include a message in the comment box, who can see what is shared by the person sending in the report.

All active moderators are alerted when a report post message is sent in and can see who reported the post (i.e. "Emilie Jolie"), what category you selected ("spam," "duplicate content," etc.), and any message you included along with the contents of the post/message/etc. that was reported. This helps us respond to alerts as quickly as possible by ensuring that whoever is available can address the report.

The other place we receive messages is the Contact Us link at the bottom of any page on the site (or alternatively via e-mail). All active moderators are able to view and reply to those messages, and see any replies. Again, this helps us respond quickly and continue conversations should someone be temporarily unavailable.

We also send out friendly reminders at times when we encounter an issue that we want to bring to the attention of a particular participant. In this case, we're initiating the message to you. These messages are also viewable to all moderators, help us keep track of recurring issues, and keep us accountable to each other.

Our expectation is that moderators will not disclose or release any information available to them as a function of volunteering with the community, and are expected to access and have access only to the information needed to perform their duties in the course of moderation. Additionally, we have technical safeguards in place that add additional layers of security to moderation accounts (and the community as a whole) to both help protect against account compromise and audit access to these secure functions.

We operate on the principle of least privilege, which means we give the minimum amount of access to things needed to fill any particular role and no more.

I hope that answers your questions! Please let us know if we can be of any further help!

Best,
Paul

[Emilie Jolie]

33 minutes ago, Paul said:

Our expectation is that moderators will not disclose or release any information available to them as a function of volunteering with the community, and are expected to access and have access only to the information needed to perform their duties in the course of moderation.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

The above raises more questions than it answers, truthfully, but that's more a reflection of my naturally enquiring mind than it is your very reassuring reply. Posting on LS has been an invaluable (and very humbling) source of self-discovery, so anything I can learn about its inner workings is of interest to me. My personal opinion is that moderators should at most keep their 'civilian' identities completely private but ideally still, not post at all in the open forums, but I appreciate it's probably up to the individual moderator to choose what they want to do.

I won't tempt fate, and will simply take it at face value that moderators who also post as individual participants do fulfil those expectations with fairness and an open mind. I have no reason to believe otherwise anyway, I have found moderation in the last few months. to be just, empathetic and fair.

[Paul]

30 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

The above raises more questions than it answers, truthfully, but that's more a reflection of my naturally enquiring mind than it is your very reassuring reply.

No worries, I imagined it would, yet wanted to give as complete a response as possible.

As an examples of what I'm referring to, moderators are able to (and often do) comment internally to check in with each other on how to proceed with a reported post, various administrative issues, etc. Conversations that volunteers have access to only because they're a volunteer are intended to be internal and not shared. There are also times when someone might e-mail us something and disclose information about themselves that they haven't made public on the forums ("I sign my posts as TotallyMadeUp, but my real name is Chris"), or ask about another member, etc. ("Hey, that ISpamWebsites4ALiving guy hasn't responded to my post yet--did you ban him?")

While the moderator may know that we restricted access to a particular member, it would only be through functioning as a volunteer (ISpamWebsites4ALiving was totally restricted from the site for posting links to what he referred to as various lucrative money making opportunities), and we'd expect that they simply state that we won't comment or provide information about accounts other than one's own. ("I'm sorry, we don't provide information about other members.")

[Emilie Jolie]

19 minutes ago, Paul said:

No worries, I imagined it would, yet wanted to give as complete a response as possible.

Thanks for the clarification, Paul. This internal process makes complete sense.

From my perspective, my concerns are more about how moderator Sauron can fairly distance themselves from their moderation duties as private participant Samwise Gamgee, if that makes sense? But I assume safeguards are in place for that too, that don't just rely on a volunteer's strong sense of ethics. 

 

[Tristian]

It's been common practice for a moderator to recuse themselves from a thread they have been engaged in as a private participant and leave that for another moderator that is not involved in the discussion to handle. "Hey I've been posting in this thread, can one of you guys take a look at it?"

Same goes for posts that are directed at a moderators private account. "This person keeps calling me a jerk. Can one of you handle this?" and then the mod may hide the posts in question until another unbiased mod has a chance to review.

Mods are not immune to the guidelines either. If someone sends a report on a mod post it receives the same treatment as anyone else. I have in the past edited or removed posts made by a past mods private account when they got carried away in a discussion.

I would never pretend that mods are perfect. Mistakes have been made in the past and I'm sure some will be made in the future but I feel that we have a pretty good system of checks and balances in place to mitigate and correct those mistakes if they arise.

[Emilie Jolie]

13 minutes ago, Tristian said:

feel that we have a pretty good system of checks and balances in place to mitigate and correct those mistakes if they arise.

Hi Tristian, 

Thank you for your reply. I have no doubt that this is the case, nor have I any reason to question your internal process and how you deal with each other as moderators. 

There probably isn't a straight answer to my original query (basically, what's stopping  private participant SamWise Gamgee to gossip away to the Fellowship of the Rings community about things they know from their activities as Sauron the Moderator, and how can that affect relationships in the open forums), and that's totally fine.

Looking at it from a positive angle, I guess it's an excellent trust-building exercise!

Thank you for allowing this discussion.

[Paul]

16 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

From my perspective, my concerns are more about how moderator Sauron can fairly distance themselves from their moderation duties as private participant Samwise Gamgee, if that makes sense? But I assume safeguards are in place for that too, that don't just rely on a volunteer's strong sense of ethics. 

This is a great question. I think the underlying concern is how does LoveShack.org assure with any degree of certainty that moderators are not allowing their own biases and opinions to influence their moderation decisions.

In short, we look for volunteers to serve as moderators that have demonstrated the capacity to adhere themselves to the expectations of the community. We also encourage moderators, as Tristian pointed out, to keep each other in check and take action should someone make an error in judgement or wherever someone might make a decision that the others feel was the wrong call. Everything that we do is logged and moderators can view the history of what others have done. So, as examples, if I were to edit your post, we'd be able to see the original post you made and any subsequent edits, along with who made them and when.

Finally, we also encourage anyone in the community that feels that some action a moderator has taken isn't supported by our Community Guidelines (or Terms of Service, etc.), to reach out privately via either the report post links or Contact Us links so we can take a second look. All of those messages and our responses are viewable by the entire team of volunteers. We can either reach out and explain to the person what we did and why if they're not understanding, or restore/correct the decision made.

If you think there may be additional checks we could add, or have ideas on things we could consider to further ensure that we have appropriate compensating controls in place, we'd love to hear your suggestions.

Best,
Paul

[Emilie Jolie]

28 minutes ago, Paul said:

This is a great question. I think the underlying concern is how does LoveShack.org assure with any degree of certainty that moderators are not allowing their own biases and opinions to influence their moderation decisions.

Thank you, Paul.

I think it's more about how to ensure a moderator's decisions do not influence how they interact with the rest of the community as a private participant, not as a moderator. This is especially true now that the process has changed, and that all interactions with all posters are visible by all moderators (which is a great internal process).

There is no solution to that, I don't think. The only way to guarantee this would be for moderators to abstain from posting as private participants altogether on principle, or to not be given access to private messaging if they want to keep their moderation duties under wraps. 

Anyway. I'm really grateful that this discussion is being allowed to continue in the open forum. I'm sure this will reassure a lot of posters.

Thank you for your approachability  and openness, Paul.

 

 

 

[Paul]

19 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

There is no solution to that, I don't think. The only way to guarantee this would be for moderators to abstain from posting as private participants altogether on principle, or to not be given access to private messaging if they want to keep their moderation duties under wraps. 

I think it's fair to say that many moderators have chosen to do just this. Once volunteering for the role, they've stopped or significantly reduced posting with their original accounts. However, we don't make that a condition of volunteering, nor do I think it's fair thing to ask. We're all human, and we can all benefit from the learning that happens with discourse here.

I'm not sure what you mean by not giving access to private messaging to moderators though. Are you saying that moderators should not be able to send and receive private messages to other participants? We agree with this, and are working on a technical solution.

We ask that moderators communicate with other participants via our support system to keep those messages transparent and viewable to all of the volunteers and not only to the ones engaged in the private discussion (this is where messages from the Contact Us links go). We are looking for ways to stop private messages from being received by moderators, yet we don't want to those who think that's the way to reach out and ask for help to be met with a "this person doesn't receive private messages" warning and think there's no way to get help. So, until we're able to make technical changes to redirect those messages to our support system automatically, moderators have been asked to move those conversations into the support system manually.

If instead you're saying that moderators should not be able to view the private messages between other people, then we also agree. Moderators cannot do this. We do not have the ability to view private conversations that we are not a part of, unless someone in that private conversation uses the "report message" feature to alert moderation of an issue.

In those instances, the reported conversation (and reported conversation only) is shared through the same mechanism that we receive reports on posts, viewable by all volunteers with the message provided by the person alerting us to the issue. So, as an example, if you were to receive a private message from ISpamWebsitesForALiving telling you about the many benefits of sending your credit card and social security number to her so that she could get you in on the ground floor of an amazing opportunity, and you clicked on the report button on the private message itself to report it as spam, then and only then would we be able to see the message, along with any details you provided in the report screen.

This is why it's so important that individuals report things unsavory as unless you tell us about it, we may have no idea it's there.

Best,
Paul

[Emilie Jolie]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply, Paul.

Firstly, I need to make things clear so there is no misunderstanding: my queries are theoretical, they are not based on any concrete current or past issues with the moderation process of the website. I think the fact that posters can see for themselves how professional the process is crucial, which is what inspired this thread. I don't know when this new moderation process was introduced (your post on Racism and Our Community indicates the process was updated with the revamp) but I have not seen any sticker poster or clear reference to it on the community guidelines and wanted a explanation, partly out of curiosity, and partly out of privacy and anonymity concerns. I now have it, for which I'm thankful.

Secondly, I have no doubt that your selection criteria for becoming a volunteer on an international online community such as LS are watertight - reading your expectations on this were particularly helpful to me and I'm sure others, as that made clear that I don't have the skills nor do I fulfil the required expectations to do the job. I have all the more admiration for those who can do it. Still, I'm curious about the process.

1 hour ago, Paul said:

Are you saying that moderators should not be able to send and receive private messages to other participants? We agree with this, and are working on a technical solution.

I don't think moderators should be able to send or receive pms for their own sake, yes, but that's not my concern, and I feel like we are circling around the issue. Some posters may not be comfortable with the idea of alerting the whole moderation team on a specific issue if they know that moderators have hidden private participant accounts with access to private messaging facilities. In my view, a moderator should not have access to private messaging facilities either as a moderator or as a private participant, if they choose to participate, for ethical considerations, except you obviously - it is, after all, your website!

Anyway. This is just my own personal opinion as a lowly poster with a wandering mind, though - you're the boss, feel free to discard. I'm just glad posters have the opportunity to give their thoughts as users 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[Paul]

I'm happy to share as I can! I think it's important that we talk about these things as we continue to learn and grow as a community. I also think it's important, that in a conversation that's steering around the idea of a single individual having multiple accounts, that we should acknowledge that there are many non-moderators that have registered more than one account. Why this happens and what motivates that is a bit off-topic, yet I think we need to note that it's a practice for some (and may be a conversation for a separate thread).

29 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

I don't think moderators should be able to send or receive pms for their own sake, yes, but that's not my concern, and I feel like we are circling around the issue. Some posters may not be comfortable with the idea of alerting the whole moderation team on a specific issue if they know that moderators have hidden private participant accounts with access to private messaging facilities. In my view, a moderator should not have access to private messaging facilities either as a moderator or as a private participant, if they choose to participate, for ethical considerations, except you obviously - it is, after all, your website!

If I'm understanding correctly, I think you're saying that the idea that someone who is a moderator can use a personal account to reach out to others via private messaging is ethically inappropriate. So, if as an example, I, as a moderator, also posted here with the account TotallyARegularOlPerson, then being able to send a private message to you as TotallyARegularOlPerson, without disclosing that I was also Paul publicly, would be a concern? That's to say, in your opinion, the account TotallyARegularOlPerson should not be able to send or receive private messages to anyone, because it's under the control of a person who also acts as a moderator here with a different account.

Am I correct in understanding what you mean by "access to private messaging facilities?" In other words, by virtue of volunteering as a moderator, one should have the ability to send and receive private messages to other participants taken away from the account they've used here? If you, for example, were to volunteer as a moderator, upon taking on the role, we should prevent Emilie Jolie from using private messaging going forward?

If so, I'd be interested to understand what informs this ethical dilemma, in your opinion. I don't believe this concern, as I understand it, has ever come up before, so it's entirely possible we've never considered the implications.

[Emilie Jolie]

21 minutes ago, Paul said:

Am I correct in understanding what you mean by "access to private messaging facilities?" In other words, by virtue of volunteering as a moderator, one should have the ability to send and receive private messages to other participants taken away from the account they've used here?

Basically, yes. I think this would go a long way, as a symbolic gesture, in cementing trust between moderators and posters, and would considerably minimise the concerns or perceptions of bias and / or potential breach of privacy, even when they are not necessarily warranted; an added layer of safety, so posters feel even more comfortable reaching out to the moderation team without any worries that their issues might be shared with third parties. On an anonymous forum, trust in the moderation process is all the more important.

I have a personal attachment to LS, it's been a valuable friend to me (and to many others not doubt) and I'd like to see it keep going as long as possible - hence my interest in the minutiae of its inner workings, but I don't want to exhaust your patience, so I'll stop here on this topic and will leave it to other posters to add their thoughts to it if they have any

 

 

 

 

[Piddy]

How about when threads get off topic by several posts, instead of deleting them, how about moving them to the appropriate thread?  Just saw where several posts were erased because they were off topic.

  They were anti Trump posts that got sidetracked in a Covid thread.  Why not move them to the appropriate thread.  This type thing is where real or perceived bias comes into play.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Piddy

[Robert]

5 minutes ago, Piddy said:

How about when threads get off topic by several posts, instead of deleting them, how about moving them to the appropriate thread?  Just saw where several posts were erased because they were off topic.

  They were anti Trump posts that got sidetracked in a Covid thread.  Why not move them to the appropriate thread.  This type thing is where real or perceived bias comes into play.

Thanks for your question Piddy

There are cases when an off topic discussion can or will be moved either into it's own thread or another thread already running but in this case the posts were just chatter that would have been better suited for the PM system as they had no real data that could of fit into a running thread so it was removed to stop the thread from being driven off topic.

Robert

 

[Piddy]

4 minutes ago, Robert said:

Thanks for your question Piddy

There are cases when an off topic discussion can or will be moved either into it's own thread or another thread already running but in this case the posts were just chatter that would have been better suited for the PM system as they had no real data that could of fit into a running thread so it was removed to stop the thread from being driven off topic.

Robert

 

Robert,

I disagree.  They were all anti Trump posts.  Why not move them to a Trump thread instead of deleting them all?  Again, this is where the question of bias comes into play.  Chatter is subjective.  Many threads have 'chatter'.   This is what I was in a discussion with Paul about.  Very easily could've moved all the posts into another Trump thread.   This is why some of us don't like the idea of Mods posting under another username.  It's for this reason exactly.

How do I know you aren't a Trump supporter who posts under another username and holds a bias against Trump detractors?  Not saying you are, but it leaves the question.  Should've just moved the posts and there would be no question of bias.  

[carhill]

Sample thread..

However, there is also this directive in place for over 15 years...

Quote

As you can see, there is a new forum here on LoveShack.org. Going forward, all political commentary pertaining to the American presidential election, and actions taken by the current American administration belongs here, and nowhere else on the boards.

 

[Paul]

Piddy,

In the interest of transparency, I've personally removed the posts in on-topic areas of the community for being off-topic and going into political discussions about various favorable and unfavorable opinions of an assortment of political leaders, parties, and ideologies in the past 24-hours rather than related to the subject matter of the on-topic thread. I've also removed posts where a particular group is being berated, or pejorative terms are being used to describe a class of people. I don't think they're the ones you're referencing, @Piddy, yet I think the point on that is moot.

The post from @midori that @carhill shared above from way back in 2004 is ever relevant today as it was sixteen years ago when she first authored it. I believe it may be time for a reminder that this is an interpersonal relationship discussion community first and foremost, and never was intended to be a place to discuss politics, and we've been having internal discussions on the best way to do that. We created a space for political chatter, as many established members found difficulty keeping political commentary out of on-topic forums in the time leading up to the 2004 presidential elections. Then, as today, people who had their off-topic remarks removed from otherwise on-topic threads felt a real sense of bias. Then, as today, people from every point on the political spectrum have voiced that they felt that their particular ideology or party was being censored here. We receive notes from individuals who feel that moderation as a whole clearly leans in one direction or another, and the common denominator is that individuals who feel passionate about something, don't like it when that something is removed, and feel that by virtue of having their content removed, moderators must have a bias against the thoughts expressed.

I will share that I have personally removed and edited statements from posts that expressed exactly my own personal beliefs and perspectives, and have restored posts others have removed that expressed beliefs I feel strongly against. My job as a moderator isn't to think about or make decisions based on whether or not I feel the same about something, but whether or not what was posted fits within our established boundaries.

When I look at a particular post that has gone astray from the subject of the thread, or a collection of posts that have formed a tangent, I ask myself: does this fall under our primary directive? If yes, I try to find a home for it by splitting it off into its own thread. This is often a laborious process, however, and when faced with off-topic posts, I only do so if I can spare the time and if the off-topic banter is reflective of some new, meaningful contribution that hasn't already been discussed elsewhere. Other moderators may respond differently or may have additional time to deal with such things. For all of us, however, we prioritize on-topic discussion and remove off-topic posts before the thread is further derailed. If we can find a place for them later when we have time, or if the participant who didn't follow the Community Guidelines is tasked with restating those thoughts in the appropriate off-topic place at their convenience is not something we're primarily concerned with.

At the end of the day, this community does not exist, and is not here for the discussion of politics. We have a place for that for those who wish to do so, and a stipulation that those discussions happen in that special place and only in the special place. We have a universally strong bias toward on-topic discussion, and provide off-topic spaces where we expect individuals will play nice and stay in the sandbox.

You're always welcome to reach out and ask about deleted posts privately. I, and the other moderators, would be happy to look at the discussion referenced and give it a second look, or consider moving it to a place it might better belong in the off-topic areas (or perhaps make a different call than the moderator who addressed it did in retrospect). And we'll be open and give you a detailed, private response.

Best,
Paul

[Emilie Jolie]

If this thread has shown anything, it's actually the amount of time dedicated, and work going on behind the scenes that we, as users, aren't always aware of.

It's been eye-opening.

 

 

[Piddy]

Is it fair to ask how many current moderators are there?  I know of Robert and Tristan.  Are there more than those two?  Those two and Paul are the only ones I've ever seen and interacted with. 

Also, maybe it's because I've been on better behavior.   But has the points system been retired.  If so that was a good idea.  I'm for lite modding myself.  Haven't been here nearly as long as others, but heavy modding is a turn off IMO.  Not sure if modding is even a word.  🤔

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Piddy

[Paul]

Just now, Piddy said:

Is it fair to ask how many current moderators are there?  I know of Robert and Tristan.  Are there more than those two?  Those two and Paul are the only ones I've ever seen and interacted with.

Yes, it's a fair question, and we're working on bringing back the ability to view a list of who the current moderators are. There are presently four of us who are here regularly (you're missing @6ix from your list) and whose faces you'll see, and an additional two that remain mostly behind the scenes volunteering on our board through administrative decision making and policy matters. We also have a few technical volunteers that do not have the ability to moderate, yet are kind enough to help us figure out what wire plugs into what, and how to make software less buggy. Over the history of the community, there have been many, many more! As life's events come up and people's priorities shift, wonderful individuals have hung up their moderator hat, so there are a few alumni who remain participants yet no longer volunteer or have moderator abilities.

All that said, our current numbers are a bit low. We are actively looking for new volunteers and have a list of candidates we've heard from and have been in touch with (those interested, please reach out!). As I've shared recently, I believe we would all benefit greatly from a larger team, and now that the core of us have had the time to learn and adjust to the various technical kinks in the new platform, I think we're at a place where we can bring those folks on without breaking things too much. We're working behind the scenes on making the process of granting moderator privileges much more sustainable, and in helping bring new volunteers up to speed on how to use the various tools we have and the expectations we set.

31 minutes ago, Piddy said:

Also, maybe it's because I've been on better behavior.   But has the points system been retired.

I think you're referring to "points" attached to the friendly reminders we send out at times. For those unfamiliar, we try to inform individuals when we've made a change to something by sending friendly reminders that tie back to the Community Guidelines. In an attempt to keep things uniform across all of us, arbitrary point values were attached to those reminders and reaching arbitrary accumulated points would result in certain restrictions, such as having a moderator review your posts before they appear. The points were never meant to be public facing, and we've made changes to fix that and how we use reminders, with more to come. Our previous platform did this quite a bit differently (some may remember "nudges"), so this is one of the areas where we're still looking at ways to improve.