Was doing some googling and found this article:
https://heatst.com/tech/reddits-little-napoleon-problem-who-mods-the-mods/
I know, >reddit, but a lot of it applies to 4chan as well.
Thoughts?
>>575048
>Thoughts?
Kill yourself.
>>575048
the admin you retard
>>575053
The article says the admins don't do jack shit to abusive mods. What is Hiro known for not doing?
>>575053
Taking the piss?
>>575065
Taking it where?
>>575048
Most of these articles are basically the equivalent of a blogger writing on an apparently legitimate website.
>>575053
As a mod of a default myself, the admins NEVER talk to us. Maybe every few months there's an admin passing along an AMA opportunity for us to host if we want but that's it. They never step in and tell us how to do anything, we'd have to mess up extraordinarily bad to get contacted by them that way.
Re: subreddit ownership problems - it's the best solution, but all the solutions are terrible. If the admins removed top mods for being bad, they'd be setting precedent that causes reddit to riot every time they have a new lynch mob target that may or may not be legitimate. If you do some user voting to remove top mods, then that can easily be gamed. If lower mods can remove upper mods, that encourages top mods, especially power hungry ones, to recruit as few mods as possible and to make sure they are very loyal to them.
>>575048
People always abuse power when left unchecked.
>>575048
The mods are moderated by your ability to pick up your toys and go home to another website. Be it 8gag, or Something Awful, Gaia Online, Xeogaming, Vizzedboard, Bodybuilder forums, or Pizza Hut's General Discussion Board.
Your, and everybody else's, inability to do that is why the mods are so unchecked.
>>575074
Even worse when it stems from a mod culture wherein the admin and mods are IRL chums and equally have a general distaste for the userbase, as in how m00t and his early goon squad established from the get go.
>>575071
To my knowledge the admins only step in if something illegal is happening, or if the mods are violating site rules. Controlling the content of a sub-reddit doesn't violate site rules and is actually what the mods are expected to do. So yeah, I agree that from an admin perspective a hands off approach is best.
Amusingly 8gag went to shit every time Hot Wheels decided to step into the moderation of individual boards.
>>575085
>Hot Wheels decided to step into the moderation of individual boards
Largely due to while HW looking like a battered ginger rhizome, he was pretty much a normalfag with not a whole lot of understanding of smaller niche communities. He kind of fucked up in a similar manner on wizchan and didn't really "get it".
>>575088
That's generally what happens. The admins don't know as much about the niche communities as the individual moderators and usually end up fucking up worse than what it already was because of it. The 'make your own board/subreddit' fails most of the time, but it's a better solution than blindly hacking at usable communities.
>>575094
At the same time, it kind of doesn't fail, because what exactly is there to compare it against? If everything fails, maybe it's just that the thing they're trying to do (Make a nice thing) is just impossible due to multiple complex forces beyond anyone's control.
>>575074
That may be true, but if it's not like the abuse is always just to be a dick and ruin everything.
People with power still have desires, and if you put people in power with knowledge and experience who desire to see 4chan be a good site more so than to impose their will just to assert their dominance then everything would be fine.
>>575048
Also this thread is fucking stupid. OP could easily have made this topic without any references to faggit.
Honestly, is there even anything at all in that article that isn't common sense?
Who mods the administration that mods the mods? How many levels of oversight do we need to counter human biases?
There's no form of government or regulation that "works" because you can't remove the human element from it. Humans are fallible. Nobody can fix that. There is no such thing as an objective human being.
4chan affords you a great deal of freedom compared to other message boards or social sites. This is possibly the most free-speech zone on the Internet. So what are you complaining about specifically?
>>575101
> This is possibly the most free-speech zone on the Internet.
Careful believing that kind of garbage. You're just doing the very same nationalism meme (as in the academic version of the word) doublethink as everybody else.
In reality, the only reason 4chan has even a semblance of "Free Speech" is because you agree with the lionshare of topics allowed to be discussed, and probably disagree with most of the topics that aren't allowed to be discussed. If you were a GamerGator you likely wouldn't consider 4chan a bastion of free speech. If you were a liberal on /pol/ you likely wouldn't consider 4chan a free speech haven either.
In reality, nowhere is a free speech haven except for the entire internet at large. Soon as you go into any specific part of it, 4chan included, your freedoms are going to be restricted severely.
>>575098
>OP could easily have made this topic without any references to faggit.
The article is analogous to Internet moderation in general, you insufferable insecure manchild.
>>575101
>This is possibly the most free-speech zone on the Internet. So what are you complaining about specifically?
How does that follow, at all? It's like you made a few sweeping blanket statements in order to create a bizarre assumed conclusive statement as a means to nullify further criticism.
This isn't a religion, anon. You don't need to evoke that sort of bullshit rhetoric to try and protect the image of this place within your head. Surely you are not that insecure that you need to resort to such doublethink bullshit? I think you're just being lazy, don't really have an opinion and just want to comment for the sake of being opinionated.
What you have just done whether you realise it or not is a direct attempt to quell discussion, something rather ironic considering your assertion about this place being all about free speech. That is, you talk about freedom of speech but certainly don't appear to want those to have it which hold opinions that may potentially disagree with your idealism.
>>575095
Something failing the least doesn't make it not fail. Representative democracy fails quite a lot but it's still one of the better systems of governance that we have at the moment. It might be impossible for me to headbutt through a brick wall, I'm still failing every time I try.
>>575060
Is this swaglord
>>575071
>as a mod of a default
You need to go back.
>>575098
>common sense
Anytime you appeal to "common sense" you are liable to get shit on because reality often doesn't operate according to common sense.
>>575118
>The article is analogous to Internet moderation in general, you insufferable insecure manchild.
It can be analogous to my dick but that still doesn't imply that it's not all unnecessary common sense
If you don't think it's common sense then you're probably new to internet communities in general. Probably why you're attracted to that website I guess.
>>575098
>Honestly, is there even anything at all in that article that isn't common sense?
Yes. It features various case studies of how moderation of moderation has played out across a certain site on the internet.
An article that featured descriptions of how certain moderation incidents have played out across, say, 4chan, would add to the article even if you happened to be a super duper 4chan expert who predicted them perfectly before they had actually happened thanks to your infallible common sense.
>>575130
Oh gee how insightful. Maybe I should take a second read of this article.
Oh would you look at that, it all ended in _abuse_, who could have fucking seen this coming?
Good thing OP created this thread to let us all know that something is being abused on the internet. This is huge, we really need to get the word out.
>>575111
lol, nah you just side with the mods' politics
I've been hunted down and harassed by mods in the past for simply acknowledging that I support gay rights. Meanwhile, /pol/lacks shitting up threads on the same board were left untouched.
I'm well aware that the mods are biased. But how is the site structure intrinsically flawed? It's human beings who are flawed, and you can't remove the human element from this site. Unless Hiro trades in the staff for an automated moderation system that can somehow identify offending posts, 4chan is as inclusive and non-encroaching as it can possibly (legally) be.
The point is that a great deal of discourse is allowed here that gets you censored anywhere else. I've quit numerous message boards because of retarded user voting-based moderation systems that turned into a tyranny of the majority, or because the site's global policies enforced political correctness on members. You don't see that shit here, and don't waste your time trying to convince me otherwise.
>GamerGate
Organizing raids is against the global rules. It's not a complicated thing to connect. Violate the global rules = get banned. And don't tell me it didn't involve raids. I was there and watched the whole thing go down.
I've been banned from /v/ several times myself, always as a result of the aforementioned anti-LGBT / anti-liberal biases that some mods have.
>>575134
>Oh would you look at that, it all ended in _abuse_, who could have fucking seen this coming?
Some "abuse" was dealt with by the admins. Some wasn't.
>Good thing OP created this thread to let us all know that something is being abused on the internet.
You're right; OP's article is not the second coming of Christ. It probably doesn't even need to be heralded with a 21-gun salute and given a ticker-tape parade. What it was was a jumping-off point for discussion, the same way a description of moderation implosions on 8ch or 2ch or any other site would.
>>575138
>jumping-off point for discussion
What could go wrong?
>>575142
Reactionary knee-jerk shitters might come and shit up your thread as part of their continuous, never-ending war on all things Reddit.
>>575146
Exactly.
>>575148
I thought you were the shitter in question. Were you not?
Refusing to post something that might be relevant because you're afraid of other people's reactions is self-censorship and generally idiotic behavior.
>>575152
My point is, if you're a faggot and want to start up a discussion about something it's probably not necessary for you to begin by informing everyone that you're a humongous schlong swallowing cock goblin.
>>575135
How the hell did you write all of that and not realize that you agree with me? All of your semantic context is irrelevant. The pre/subtext is the same.
First off, this article is written as an user complaint. Therefore it is questionable how much truth this article holds. Secondly, I have never used reddit as much as I have used 4chan, so I know little of the community of reddit apart from this article and the banter on this place. Nonetheless I can say some things about the moderation and their actions, since I study Criminology.
I found this bit in the conclusion interesting:
>While there are plenty of examples of abuse, most of the mods on Reddit are normal people, generous enough to give their time weeding out spam and keeping their communities thriving and on topic. But the checks and balances to their power are almost nonexistent, leading to never-ending cycles of revolutions and counterrevolutions. Perhaps a dose of democracy to the current oligarchic system is what Reddit needs to curb the perpetual drama.
From what I understand the mods seem to suffer on an individual level from tunnel vision and on an organizational level from group think. Normal people lose their objectivity, their critical thought, and do not listen to conflicting opinions. They lose sight of the purpose of a moderator. Thus, they turn into 'Napoleons'. The writer identifies a major cause for this psychological/sociological phenomenon: a lack of effective feedback on the actions of the moderator. "Complaints to the admins are often ignored". "Checks and balances to their power are almost nonexistent".
1/2
>>575221
I doubt a democratic system solves this problem. Every 4 years a new version of admin abuse. No, I think solutions must be found within the foundations in the moderation.
1. Everyone with power should realize they are fallible. It's a norm, an idea you must constantly be reminded of.
2. Advocate of the Devil. Within the moderation some people should be given the task to be against every decision that is made. Question everything. Point out why deleting this topic or why censoring this comment is wrong. Through this you prevent/weaken/solve the problem of group think. Don't forget to circulate this task among mods. It reinforces the critical thought.
3. Discussion. The moderation should enter into a debate with the community. The distance between them should be decreased. Again, it gives the moderation a different view on their actions.
4. Maybe the moderation should change from time to time.
I probably forgot some essential theory and solutions. How can you force the mods to listen? Should moderators be chosen by certain skills in terms of conflict and mediation? What about Sutherland and his Differential Association? Is being a 'Napoleon' a response to the actions of the community?
I'm off to bed.
2/2
>>575101
>This is possibly the most free-speech zone on the Internet.
I've read some posts.
>>575101
>This is possibly the most free-speech zone on the Internet.
Yeah not for long, because /qa/ is full of triggered bitch niggers who want to filter things
>>575120
No you're swaglord(e)
I don't really see how this applies to 4chan at all. The mod structure on this site is completely different, mods don't rule over boards like kings and users can't just start up rival boards if they're unhappy. Founding a rival *chan is a very old practice but most of them die because founding an independent website is a lot harder than just starting a new board on a popular website where new boards crop up all the time. There's only a handful of spin-off chans that are still active enough to be called living.
I think the really important difference is how the moderators on 4chan don't have any ownership over the boards. Moderators have site-wide authority, yet at the same time it divorces them of any attachment to one particular place. They can't turn a board into their personal domain where they control all, they can't rewrite rules to suit their tastes. In fact mods are themselves bound by rules.
I think it works mostly because the core staff of 4chan, those with the power to appoint and remove moderators, seem to prioritize the rules of the site above everything else. The rules are seldom changed or revised, and for the most part moderators do little besides enforce them as-is. Because 4chan moderator doctrine apparently discourages actions that don't cohere to existing rules, there's basically no opportunities for dictators to emerge.
Of course this is modern 4chan, not the wild west days of WT Snacks. I think moot learned his lesson from that episode and that's why there wasn't a repeat of it.
I think you should probably commit suicide.
>>575485
This.
>>575480
>They can't turn a board into their personal domain where they control all
that's exactly what some did though
>>575480
/co/ literally has a fascist mod that has horrible priorities.
