It’s a response on Diane’s post.
Diane
The problem is that, if a comment contains even a very brief offhand borderline political remark, even this can have an extreme “red flag” effect on many of the people who have strong disagreements with the political viewpoint in question.
If someone will react that way then I agree that the discussion should be forwarded to different thread with different tag but till no one clearly tend to discuss it further I don’t see reason to forbid mentioning it right away in a first comment (again, if it’s not broader part of the post). Maybe I place general stipulation on my journal that further responses not holding to TS BN guidlines will be forwarded to new entry with a proper tag but such considerations seem rather like splitting a tiger’s skin on a living tiger. I think that every blog will have its own specific, advantages, disadvantages and own moderation issues so will see what happen. We have main guidelines and that should be sufficient for the start.
I’m personally not interested in discussing strict political topics hence I though TS-eth-pol wouldn’t be a group for me but surprisingly I found out that the most interesting discussions and subjects were lead there. I don’t mind if others are willing to follow the discussion into strict political debate if it holds on cultural level. Even on your Yahoo group people haven’t been often discussing politic of particular country but rather social, ethical problems or more general, international politic which I find interesting.
You would not necessarily have to forward the comment. I’ve suggested several alternatives. However, in my opinion, something should be done immediately in response to even the first hint of a sociopolitical digression, to mitigate the red-flag effect, rather than waiting for it to turn into a full-blown political debate.
Like I stated above: we’ll see if problems occurs.
The first step is a preventive measure: Requiring all new bloggers to engage in discussion about the rules on their blogs, as a way of trying to ensure that they all understand the rules. It probably would be a good idea to have a private Yahoo group for the bloggers as well, so that ongoing issues can be dealt with in a semi-private manner.
It’s a good idea. However in best case if the TS BN will be very successful , sacrificing so many time for each blogger will be impossible for you but bloggers private group could help us to share with others with moderation problems and how in particular case it was solved.
It would be good if at the beginning there would be more than ten willing bloggers. I hope that most still wait till everything will work properly or for situation where they wouldn’t have any other alternative. It’s also possible that quite many people hope your idea won’t work and nothing or little will change or that everything will settle somehow by itself, without doing much from their side… It is you who feel the biggest need for change. For most participants Yahoo groups are not perfect but comfortable and easy solution and they likely prefer it will stay that way.
Note the additional alternative I added at the end.
Most will probably prefer the easiest and the least labour-consuming solution but hence people will be dealing with different moderation issues the solutions will be different for each blogger. I self can’t say for sure which one I will prefer at the end.
Introduction posts were a great idea to start and roll discussion but now I can’t imagine how it would work on blog network. The big role played beginners who are excited and starve for contact with like minded people. TS BN could be some kind of challenge but for others it will be simply an obstacle and they will seek other place. Is there any reasonable idea for such potential active group or they must simply work this out?
To lave periodically an entry with invitation to write introductions as comments? Strange idea and probably not too functional. But on other hand TS BN is not to please everybody. It sifts strongly.
[...]I’ve had much better luck finding bloggers than finding co-moderators.
Because this is something new, fresh and thus exciting. Additionally being blogger moderator one have more freedom and is not so timely obliged as it would be by Yahoo group where regular receiving posts through the day is very important feature.
No comments:
Post a Comment