[wp-forums] Twitter ain't .ORG

[Mika A Epstein]

> Jane Wells <mailto:jane at automattic.com>
> 21 July, 2013 6:17:17AM
> 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.
It comes down to HOW we're doing it all though.

Yes, helping everyone stay on topic and prevent derailment is helpful 
moderation, but take a look at how people react to it, and how we're 
DOING it. If that's going downhill, I gotta think we're doing something 
wrong.  It's impossible, of course, to stop people from over-reacting 
and calling us names or following us home, but we can be responsible 
enough not to exacerbate it :)

Which was the point I was trying to make at *mumble* midnight.
>> 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.
Which is why it has said "... & Moderator" for about a year now :)

Funny, yes, but I added in & Moderator to a lot of people to clarify 
when folks (rightly) pointed out they had no idea if I was going to stab 
them in the dark and steal their login info.
>> 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.
Steering them in the right direction in the right way. This is why I 
hate Copy/Pasta. It doesn't respond to someone in the tone they spoke 
in. They see an autobot and get annoyed, especially because they come 
off as pretty brusque, which I THINK was the start of the hassle the 
other day. Makes it look like we're not actually listening.

Either way, going from a brusque, possibly over reaction, into bringing 
someone's tweets into the fray was a bit much.