Test: Editing a thread for personal attacks

[The Villain for Testing]

Please help set up a thread with a variety of quotations, nested responses, etc. so we can practice the mechanics of moderation and the discussions of decisions.

Funny is good and you can absolutely riff on themes we've seen over the years on CHE.  Please remember, though, we're friends here testing and having fun as we do it.

<ahem>

I've been reading this here board (fora is just plain wrong) all morning and I STONGLY disagree with almost everything you bozos have written.  I don't see why you book-lurking professors need a discussion group of your very own to do something as simple as teach.  Why, I teach a class every term in the University Extension out of the backroom of the barbershop in the strip mall near the highway and I NEVER see the problems with class clowns that many of you wannabe classroom jockeys claim are widespread.

I think you're just bad teachers who don't belong in the classroom at all and certainly not being paid the big bucks that all you tenured people pull down while laughing in the faces of those of us who didn't waste all our time jumping hoops that didn't matter then and don't matter know to teach in your precious accredited universities.

Don't even get me started on the "professors" who only teach a little bit, but get paid a lot to just write articles and books that don't address THE TRUE Problems of society, which are those underpants gnomes who have now expanded into socks.

What do you say to that, you pseudonymous people who need to be TOLD THE Truth.?

[polly_mer]

I've been reading this here board (fora is just plain wrong) all morning and I STONGLY disagree with almost everything you bozos have written.  I don't see why you book-lurking professors need a discussion group of your very own to do something as simple as teach.  Why, I teach a class every term in the University Extension out of the backroom of the barbershop in the strip mall near the highway and I NEVER see the problems with class clowns that many of you wannabe classroom jockeys claim are widespread.

For perspective, when I teach classes for students who truly want to learn the subject like upper-level majors, I see far less of the disruptive behavior than when I'm teaching a general education course to people who are being exposed to very new ideas and are uncertain of their feelings.

I suggest you reframe your reading here to see what you can contribute in terms of positive tips for teaching or perhaps just spend time with games and social threads.  Everyone with an interest in higher ed is welcome here, but the tone of this post indicates maybe you could rethink what you want to get from these fora (it is absolutely fora!).

[Thursday's_Child]

What do you say to that, you pseudonymous people who need to be TOLD THE Truth.?

<trying for the spirit of this thread>

If you really were a college professor you would be adequately inculcated with the required pedantry (and the accompanying precision of thought, word and deed) that you would have typed TRUTH not Truth.

Can't you see how continuing the capitalization all the way to the end of the phrase is absolutely required?  Such sloppiness is deplorable and bodes ill for your career!

[mamselle]

That's spelled <<Per-fesser>>, Puh-lese...!

I thought you said we had to use good grammer n pucntialtn n all thet stuffff...

M.

[fast_and_bulbous]

Eh, that's pretty obvious weaksauce trolling.

I think what is more important at this stage is just the mechanics of banning (temporary/what level/warnings/etc.) rather than a discussion of "what constitutes bannable posting" because that is open to interpretation.

Both are worth doing/discussing of course. But moderators will disagree amongst themselves, and at some point you just need to accept that.

[mamselle]

....giggling...never heard the term "weaksauce trolling" before.

I'm learning all kinds of new stuff in this migration.

Oh--you said the Bearing Straight is that way?

M.

[polly_mer]

Eh, that's pretty obvious weaksauce trolling.

I think what is more important at this stage is just the mechanics of banning (temporary/what level/warnings/etc.) rather than a discussion of "what constitutes bannable posting" because that is open to interpretation.

Both are worth doing/discussing of course. But moderators will disagree amongst themselves, and at some point you just need to accept that.

I continue to fail at making my tests clear.  I don't care about agreeing on the level of offense for this test; the discussion test is the mechanics of how we discuss: logs? comments in the logs?  Threads?  Emails? 

I also need mechanics practice in how to figure out if a post has been quoted, responded to, or other considerations.

I am not an experienced moderator in these systems so I need practice in the mechanics.

Weak sauce or not, I can still practice on quotes and interwoven discussion.

Please help with those practice tasks for me.

[eigen]

IMO, by far the easiest way is to discuss with a thread in the moderator forum. It shows up for everyone, and is easy.

That said, I think it's also important (as we move into that) to have a system that allows individual mods discretion if they need it, and still has a laddered process.

It's also worth noting that as we go forward, we have some mods that may (or may not) actually want to stay on the full time moderating staff. By the list from the old forums, we only had 3 people who wanted to be mods- we have a few extra mods now that are enabled less for moderation and more for forum setup: if you have admin privileges, you have mod privileges.

Similarly, we have two tiers of mods set up with differing levels of privileges. From my past moderation experience, it usually works the best to have a large number of people that can take care of "regular" tasks (spam, requested edits, moving threads, etc.) and another set that take care of more serious issues (suspensions, bans, changing settings). As of now, those are "Senior Moderators" and "Moderators".

This also provides a built in and tiered learning experience where new mods get a chance to get experienced on basic (and easily reversible) tasks.

[polly_mer]

It's also worth noting that as we go forward, we have some mods that may (or may not) actually want to stay on the full time moderating staff. By the list from the old forums, we only had 3 people who wanted to be mods- we have a few extra mods now that are enabled less for moderation and more for forum setup: if you have admin privileges, you have mod privileges.

I will mention that I, at least, sat on my hands for the past weeks instead of putting my name next to everything I know needs doing to allow others the opportunity to volunteer as people trickled in and started to believe we really would migrate. If all the slots were filled, then that would be discouraging to building a larger team and we need many people to buy in.

I expect that we will get more volunteers and probably experienced folks we know for the routine tasks as we continue testing.  The hard part is setting up the system and bringing together new skills along with the various visions of how things could be since we have the option.

Discussion is good, even if sometimes the growing pains call for several deep breaths and maybe some extra candy all around.

<puts a stack of big Toblerones in the middle of the table>

[and no, I'm not really here; I'm really at the office banging on the report due Friday]

[fast_and_bulbous]

Yesterday I was ready to throw in the towel but today I am feeling like this is a good learning experience, and I want to continue to contribute via moderation. I've been on so many great forums - that's the bulk of my cyberinteraction as I do not do any forms of social media (except for a small youtube channel). I've never seen things from the other side, but I do know the grief that moderators sometimes have to deal with...