Community business
Hi all. I'm sorry that i'm going to diverge from the talking-politics(TM) and occupy you with this again, but i think its a matter that needs to be addressed, and this time properly. I'm afraid last time we didnt exhaust the issue as we should and problems remained between members; unfortunately, the two guys who should've been most inolved in the discussion (Mahnmut and myself) were away and offline for a few days, and that - in the most inappropriate time, but now that we're having quite a decent (if a bit irregular) access to the webs, this time we can do this properly. I'll try to be as concise as possible. Its a matter that should be settled once and for all. So here's what.
This is a statement from both Abomvubuso and Mahnmut, part of the Talk Politics staff.
1) Confession. As has been brought to your attention, Mahnmut and i had plagiarised a few articles (mainly from a political blog and elsewhere) over the last couple of months, rehashed their content word-by-word and presented them as our own. Thats clearly a violation of any ethical rules, and though such a rule wasnt explicitly stated in the community profile at the time, its still absolutely no excuse for us whatsoever.
But without much further ado, here are examples of those problematic posts (we did realise, after being pointed at it, that if they had remained on display on the TP page it could jeopardise the comm, so we brought them down; however they're readily availabe under the following links):
abomvubuso :
Post #1 = Article #1
Post #2 = Article #2
mahnmut :
Post #1 = Article #1
Post #2 = Article #2
Post #3 = Article #3
As you can see, its pretty much stolen material, and we should never have done it, for which we owe an enormous apology not only to their authors who've done a tremendous job, but to the whole community for presenting these as our own (not providing links and citations to the articles). Now, admitting this only AFTER being called out on it is what makes us particularly embarrassed, especially when you expand a bit and realise that we could've continued with this, had we not been called out in the first place. For which we all also owe gratitude to the whistleblower who pointed attention at this issue - that is, anosognosia (we'll get back to that a bit further here).
2) Repentance. That said, the least we can do is to apologise to the whole community, and we do. Sincerely. We're asking for your forgiveness for betraying your trust, and not just as readers but as part of a community whose moderators we are. Trust is the main capital of a moderator, and if he loses it, his job is pointless - even if their job consists of a completely different kind of work (making sure that the discussion process goes without too much shakes and drama). It still reflects hugely on said mod's credibility. So we regret essentially losing that trust with some of you (while others remained unimpressed, but i want to assure them that this is not a "no-biggie" deal, it IS an important issue).
Here's the place to also promise that we'll never do such a stupid thing again. Of course i'm aware that some of you may never trust us again, and that would be understandable. Building trust is not an easy job, even if we've been doing our best for a long time. Granted, a couple of glitches like these can ruin the whole thing, but there's no one to blame for this but ourselves. So, once more i present from us both our most sincere apologies to everybody, and it is up to each one of you to decide what you'd think of us from now on.
3) Our reaction, which was something that aggravated some people and confused others. I think we did most things right but were perhaps not adequately clear enough in some areas, which may have further complicated the situation. First, the whistleblower. Whistleblowing, when done properly, can be a useful and even crucial thing for guaranteeing correct conduct, and should therefore generally be protected. However, this takes a certain amount of faith in the whole mod-team, which wasn't shown at all. We are 9 people that check on each other and discuss, and this takes time. If the aim of whistleblowing is to rectify a wrong, then this will always take a certain amount of time, whether it involves moderators or members.
What we possibly did wrong was to remove the problematic posts in question. It surely looks like wiping out of the evidence. On the other hand, after being pointed at it, we realised that letting them stay on display would've jeopardised the entire community, whereas now when they're shown on our personal LJs in their original form, that wouldn't reflect on TP.
4) The whistleblower. As for Anosognosia, he chose the collision course and made a post which was essentially aiming to put part of the staff and another member on the wall for a shoot-down. And that, after having been priorly approached by a staff member with a request to settle the matter in a more constructive manner. He chose not to. Rule #9 is clear: you just do not attack members in posts, regardless who they are. The thing that my colleagues did right was to bring down the post and suspend Anosognosia for a few days for breaching rules #9 & 1, as is generally done in such situations (i'd like to emphasise that the warnings / yellow/red cards system is used at the discretion of the staff, depending on the severity of an offense; there's no firm guideline carved in stone about the use of those, thats just not possible).
All that said, effective from now, Anosognosia has been reinstated into the community. We hope that we will continue participating in the political discourse in mutual dialogue and further understanding. I'm hereby extending an invitation to Anosognosia to return to TP if he desires so.
5) A bit more about trust again. We're also now requesting a credit of trust from the community. I know it won't be possible for some to look at us (me and Mahnmut) the way they used to, and thats understandable. However, those who've interacted with us may know that we never mean ill. We do promise to do our best to never betray that trust again, and of course a second such violation would instantly result in our suspension, as i'm sure our colleagues would be the first to want to do it. On a side note, Sealwhiskers has started a huge work on going through prior posts and making sure there are no other such cases, for which we are most grateful. Please also note that a Rule #11 has been added to the community profile, which explicitly deals with this issue.
5.1) Proposal A: I think here's the place to have a discussion about transparency as well. There've been complaints that we're too secretive in doing our job. I'm now proposing a reform in the way we handle matters, aiming to improve transparency. We could create a regular State-of-the-Community report, which we'll post here in an open post - there we'll report to the community about the technical stuff we've handled for the last period (say, a month?) - i.e. community matters like screenings and brief explanations for the reasons thereof (we do strongly believe that the screening policy has had some tremendous results, as the diminished amounts of drama indicate; but that should be clearly explained, a thing we've failed to do up to this point), also official warnings (as displayed on the Mods Thread) and the reasons for them, temporary suspensions plus the subsequent reinstatements, removed posts, etc etc. I'd like to hear some ideas on this from you guys.
Proposal B: To improve transparency, I now propose that you guys select a panel of several independent members (three? lets specify this), who can call upon when they think the mods need to be held accountable for something. These individuals, chosen by members will act as liaisons between the members and the mod team in times of need - you could elect a new such "panel" every month. Suggestions on this would be appreciated.
6) Punishments. The staff believes that we shouldn't be left without some consequences, since clearly what we did was not right. One proposal has been to block me and Mahnmut from writing new posts for a period (1 month). Another, even more severe consequence would be to strip us of our mod duties (also for 1 month). Now, I'm aware that this would put extra stress on the remaining staff, but it would serve as a lesson to us, too. Really, several options have been on the table. Therefore we ask for your input. Should we hold a vote of confidence? Should we be permanently stripped of our powers? Should we be temporarily suspended from posting/modding?
The point is, we should really know what the community thinks of us. After all, it's how it was intended to be - it was supposed to be "A community without egomaniacal mods", and we should live up to that standard. We're NOT supposed to be a tyrannic regime ruled by a secretive oligarchy. Members should feel that they have a voice that carries real weight, because you guys are what makes this community what it is, not us. We're just the ones making sure things run smoothly and according to the rules we have accepted. It is YOU who should decide where the comm is going, and every single person, every opinion, should be important. Thoughts?
[edit] Effective from today, and for the duration of one month, Mahnmut and Abomvubuso have been stripped of their mod powers and blocked from writing posts on Talk Politics.
This is a statement from both Abomvubuso and Mahnmut, part of the Talk Politics staff.
1) Confession. As has been brought to your attention, Mahnmut and i had plagiarised a few articles (mainly from a political blog and elsewhere) over the last couple of months, rehashed their content word-by-word and presented them as our own. Thats clearly a violation of any ethical rules, and though such a rule wasnt explicitly stated in the community profile at the time, its still absolutely no excuse for us whatsoever.
But without much further ado, here are examples of those problematic posts (we did realise, after being pointed at it, that if they had remained on display on the TP page it could jeopardise the comm, so we brought them down; however they're readily availabe under the following links):
abomvubuso :
Post #1 = Article #1
Post #2 = Article #2
mahnmut :
Post #1 = Article #1
Post #2 = Article #2
Post #3 = Article #3
As you can see, its pretty much stolen material, and we should never have done it, for which we owe an enormous apology not only to their authors who've done a tremendous job, but to the whole community for presenting these as our own (not providing links and citations to the articles). Now, admitting this only AFTER being called out on it is what makes us particularly embarrassed, especially when you expand a bit and realise that we could've continued with this, had we not been called out in the first place. For which we all also owe gratitude to the whistleblower who pointed attention at this issue - that is, anosognosia (we'll get back to that a bit further here).
2) Repentance. That said, the least we can do is to apologise to the whole community, and we do. Sincerely. We're asking for your forgiveness for betraying your trust, and not just as readers but as part of a community whose moderators we are. Trust is the main capital of a moderator, and if he loses it, his job is pointless - even if their job consists of a completely different kind of work (making sure that the discussion process goes without too much shakes and drama). It still reflects hugely on said mod's credibility. So we regret essentially losing that trust with some of you (while others remained unimpressed, but i want to assure them that this is not a "no-biggie" deal, it IS an important issue).
Here's the place to also promise that we'll never do such a stupid thing again. Of course i'm aware that some of you may never trust us again, and that would be understandable. Building trust is not an easy job, even if we've been doing our best for a long time. Granted, a couple of glitches like these can ruin the whole thing, but there's no one to blame for this but ourselves. So, once more i present from us both our most sincere apologies to everybody, and it is up to each one of you to decide what you'd think of us from now on.
3) Our reaction, which was something that aggravated some people and confused others. I think we did most things right but were perhaps not adequately clear enough in some areas, which may have further complicated the situation. First, the whistleblower. Whistleblowing, when done properly, can be a useful and even crucial thing for guaranteeing correct conduct, and should therefore generally be protected. However, this takes a certain amount of faith in the whole mod-team, which wasn't shown at all. We are 9 people that check on each other and discuss, and this takes time. If the aim of whistleblowing is to rectify a wrong, then this will always take a certain amount of time, whether it involves moderators or members.
What we possibly did wrong was to remove the problematic posts in question. It surely looks like wiping out of the evidence. On the other hand, after being pointed at it, we realised that letting them stay on display would've jeopardised the entire community, whereas now when they're shown on our personal LJs in their original form, that wouldn't reflect on TP.
4) The whistleblower. As for Anosognosia, he chose the collision course and made a post which was essentially aiming to put part of the staff and another member on the wall for a shoot-down. And that, after having been priorly approached by a staff member with a request to settle the matter in a more constructive manner. He chose not to. Rule #9 is clear: you just do not attack members in posts, regardless who they are. The thing that my colleagues did right was to bring down the post and suspend Anosognosia for a few days for breaching rules #9 & 1, as is generally done in such situations (i'd like to emphasise that the warnings / yellow/red cards system is used at the discretion of the staff, depending on the severity of an offense; there's no firm guideline carved in stone about the use of those, thats just not possible).
All that said, effective from now, Anosognosia has been reinstated into the community. We hope that we will continue participating in the political discourse in mutual dialogue and further understanding. I'm hereby extending an invitation to Anosognosia to return to TP if he desires so.
5) A bit more about trust again. We're also now requesting a credit of trust from the community. I know it won't be possible for some to look at us (me and Mahnmut) the way they used to, and thats understandable. However, those who've interacted with us may know that we never mean ill. We do promise to do our best to never betray that trust again, and of course a second such violation would instantly result in our suspension, as i'm sure our colleagues would be the first to want to do it. On a side note, Sealwhiskers has started a huge work on going through prior posts and making sure there are no other such cases, for which we are most grateful. Please also note that a Rule #11 has been added to the community profile, which explicitly deals with this issue.
5.1) Proposal A: I think here's the place to have a discussion about transparency as well. There've been complaints that we're too secretive in doing our job. I'm now proposing a reform in the way we handle matters, aiming to improve transparency. We could create a regular State-of-the-Community report, which we'll post here in an open post - there we'll report to the community about the technical stuff we've handled for the last period (say, a month?) - i.e. community matters like screenings and brief explanations for the reasons thereof (we do strongly believe that the screening policy has had some tremendous results, as the diminished amounts of drama indicate; but that should be clearly explained, a thing we've failed to do up to this point), also official warnings (as displayed on the Mods Thread) and the reasons for them, temporary suspensions plus the subsequent reinstatements, removed posts, etc etc. I'd like to hear some ideas on this from you guys.
Proposal B: To improve transparency, I now propose that you guys select a panel of several independent members (three? lets specify this), who can call upon when they think the mods need to be held accountable for something. These individuals, chosen by members will act as liaisons between the members and the mod team in times of need - you could elect a new such "panel" every month. Suggestions on this would be appreciated.
6) Punishments. The staff believes that we shouldn't be left without some consequences, since clearly what we did was not right. One proposal has been to block me and Mahnmut from writing new posts for a period (1 month). Another, even more severe consequence would be to strip us of our mod duties (also for 1 month). Now, I'm aware that this would put extra stress on the remaining staff, but it would serve as a lesson to us, too. Really, several options have been on the table. Therefore we ask for your input. Should we hold a vote of confidence? Should we be permanently stripped of our powers? Should we be temporarily suspended from posting/modding?
The point is, we should really know what the community thinks of us. After all, it's how it was intended to be - it was supposed to be "A community without egomaniacal mods", and we should live up to that standard. We're NOT supposed to be a tyrannic regime ruled by a secretive oligarchy. Members should feel that they have a voice that carries real weight, because you guys are what makes this community what it is, not us. We're just the ones making sure things run smoothly and according to the rules we have accepted. It is YOU who should decide where the comm is going, and every single person, every opinion, should be important. Thoughts?
[edit] Effective from today, and for the duration of one month, Mahnmut and Abomvubuso have been stripped of their mod powers and blocked from writing posts on Talk Politics.