My lessons from running "obama_2008"
To abomvubuso:
Hæ! Thank you kindly for the invitation to join your political community, talk_politics, but I don't want to spend much time on LiveJournal any more. You, your wife airiefairie, and your home of Cape Town, S. Africa all look delightful and fascinating! One of my friends from college was a girl from Durban, S. Africa. I also performed the South African national anthem when I was in an international singing group in college.
I was the main person helping to run obama_2008 for six months before the presidential election, so I helped to set the rules and run a forum of 2100 members, where people were NICE, didn't personally attack each other, and had supportive, interesting, and pleasant discussions.
You wrote:talk_politics aims to become a different kind of political forum, where people actually DO talk about the issues, instead of constantly flaming, trolling or personally attacking each other, and without insane moderators to harass them and impose their dictatorial whims on the rest.
In fact, this is the motto of talk_politics:
"A place to discuss politics without egomaniac mods."
I respectfully disagree with how you characterize mods as being inherently bad somehow.
Many people criticized ME for being a "dictator," "Mussolini," or "egomaniacal" when I first took over obama_2008 last May. Secret: I had never run an Internet forum before, period, when I took over obama_2008. I made some bad rookie mistakes in dealing with trolls. I got flamed for them, big time.
I felt, for the first time, what it is like to be a politician, with people watching and weighing your every word for fairness and consistency. The Internet drama got so horrible that the original creator deleted our entire community in a fit of despair, then she brought it back. Bad move. It caused a hell of a lot more drama. Our community even got mocked in "stupid_free" a couple of times, and I was personally lambasted and berated as a "Mussolini" and "egomaniacal dictator." I got over 200 nasty emails during this period. Hahaha!
Dealing with the fallout of my initial bad decisions was hell and very humbling. But I hung in there (and laughed off some of the criticism, which had grown ridiculous). After a few weeks, we mods got into the groove, set and enforced our policies below, and didn't have much more significant trouble from troublemakers or Internet drama.
You cannot have civility if the mods don't set tough rules and enforce them consistently. Adults online can act like unruly children. A few bad apples can truly spoil the mood for everyone. In fact, if they are allowed to stay nasty, other previously nice folks may start becoming rude and mean. The goals you state above contradict each other, if you don't let the mods do their jobs.
Please read our policies on the profile of obama_2008. You'll see one way that worked. We mods were vigorous at enforcing our "no asshole" policy. It worked. The nasty people either stopped being nasty or left completely, and the rest continued being nice.
I'm proud to say that obama_2008 has turned into one of the NICEST political communities on LJ. That's tough to do, with almost 2100 passionate people.
Most importantly, please read "The No-Asshole Rule." It explains my philosophy in setting the rules for behavior in obama_2008.
We have restricted admission. To keep our process objective, we have 3 people (excluding me) who decide on whom to accept to the community. If folks are unhappy with being rejected, 2 others look at their application again and decide whether to submit it to all the mods for a vote (which needs to be 70% to pass anything).
For policies in general, passing anything requires a 70% vote.
For dealing with troublemakers or rude people, we give warnings. After 3 warnings, we vote on whether to kick someone out of the community. In all these months, we have never had to give more than one warning. People know we mean business, so they have always either developed manners or completely left on their own.
Thank you again for the invitation to join your political community.
Hæ! Thank you kindly for the invitation to join your political community, talk_politics, but I don't want to spend much time on LiveJournal any more. You, your wife airiefairie, and your home of Cape Town, S. Africa all look delightful and fascinating! One of my friends from college was a girl from Durban, S. Africa. I also performed the South African national anthem when I was in an international singing group in college.
I was the main person helping to run obama_2008 for six months before the presidential election, so I helped to set the rules and run a forum of 2100 members, where people were NICE, didn't personally attack each other, and had supportive, interesting, and pleasant discussions.
You wrote:talk_politics aims to become a different kind of political forum, where people actually DO talk about the issues, instead of constantly flaming, trolling or personally attacking each other, and without insane moderators to harass them and impose their dictatorial whims on the rest.
In fact, this is the motto of talk_politics:
"A place to discuss politics without egomaniac mods."
I respectfully disagree with how you characterize mods as being inherently bad somehow.
Many people criticized ME for being a "dictator," "Mussolini," or "egomaniacal" when I first took over obama_2008 last May. Secret: I had never run an Internet forum before, period, when I took over obama_2008. I made some bad rookie mistakes in dealing with trolls. I got flamed for them, big time.
I felt, for the first time, what it is like to be a politician, with people watching and weighing your every word for fairness and consistency. The Internet drama got so horrible that the original creator deleted our entire community in a fit of despair, then she brought it back. Bad move. It caused a hell of a lot more drama. Our community even got mocked in "stupid_free" a couple of times, and I was personally lambasted and berated as a "Mussolini" and "egomaniacal dictator." I got over 200 nasty emails during this period. Hahaha!
Dealing with the fallout of my initial bad decisions was hell and very humbling. But I hung in there (and laughed off some of the criticism, which had grown ridiculous). After a few weeks, we mods got into the groove, set and enforced our policies below, and didn't have much more significant trouble from troublemakers or Internet drama.
You cannot have civility if the mods don't set tough rules and enforce them consistently. Adults online can act like unruly children. A few bad apples can truly spoil the mood for everyone. In fact, if they are allowed to stay nasty, other previously nice folks may start becoming rude and mean. The goals you state above contradict each other, if you don't let the mods do their jobs.
Please read our policies on the profile of obama_2008. You'll see one way that worked. We mods were vigorous at enforcing our "no asshole" policy. It worked. The nasty people either stopped being nasty or left completely, and the rest continued being nice.
I'm proud to say that obama_2008 has turned into one of the NICEST political communities on LJ. That's tough to do, with almost 2100 passionate people.
Most importantly, please read "The No-Asshole Rule." It explains my philosophy in setting the rules for behavior in obama_2008.
We have restricted admission. To keep our process objective, we have 3 people (excluding me) who decide on whom to accept to the community. If folks are unhappy with being rejected, 2 others look at their application again and decide whether to submit it to all the mods for a vote (which needs to be 70% to pass anything).
For policies in general, passing anything requires a 70% vote.
For dealing with troublemakers or rude people, we give warnings. After 3 warnings, we vote on whether to kick someone out of the community. In all these months, we have never had to give more than one warning. People know we mean business, so they have always either developed manners or completely left on their own.
Thank you again for the invitation to join your political community.