[wp-forums] Twitter ain't .ORG

[Jane Wells]

On 7/21/13 3:47 AM, Jan Dembowski wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 6:35 AM, Andrew2.Nevins wrote:
>
>> Recently I've beenstepping into threads a lot without contributing anything and telling
>> people to create their own threads.
> That's helping too as people often either interfere with someone else's
> topic or reply to one that's been resolved already.
I agree. Preventing derailment so a thread stays on topic is helpful 
moderation.

>> I think we should change our custom titles to something that says we're
>> more towards helping than moderating.
> I'm pretty sure we're both.
Moderating is helping, they aren't two different things.

> The custom title is about fun IMHO but I don't
> think there's a ratio to helping/moderating.
I would disagree. The custom title is not about fun, it's about 
information, letting people know who on the thread has earned some 
seniority through proven helpfulness. "Moderator" has a well-understood 
general overseer/facilitator meaning that applies to both 
troubleshooting and cleaning up the forums (spam, bad links, 
inappropriate behavior). If someone is specifically only doing one or 
the other and wants the custom title to reflect that (Troubleshooter, 
Cleanup Patrol, whatever) then that's fine, but bear in mind that then 
if you do a task that falls into another category it might seem to a new 
user that you're not qualified for the other. As for fun, "Half-elf 
Support Rogue" is a very fun title, but most new users think that's 
something personal and don't realize it means Mika is official, much 
less one of the most senior support volunteers we have.

> Helping someone to resolve their issue is more satisfying but steering
> users in the right direction or even dealing with forum spam (GAH) is still
> positive and helping.
Agreed, as those latter two tasks make the forums a more positive user 
experience, which makes for less frustrated users, which (hopefully) 
means that by the time they interact on a thread they're less likely to 
lose their cool.
j