Ask a Super User Moderator

fixer1234

02:30

@Run5k and @n8te, I wasn't aware of this discussion and added my own general feedback in that chat room. But following that review link and looking at the edit history cracked me up. :-)

n8te

07:10

It's clear that that user doesn't understand his job as a reviewer. Nothing we say seems to be sinking it at all. Unless he gets banned from reviewing, he will continue to actively harm this site (however well intentioned he is).

Journeyman Geek

@n8te I've sent a mod message

Run5k

Mods, I agree with @n8te. While this person may have the best of intentions, he honestly doesn't seem to comprehend relatively simple concepts regarding how to properly manage the review queues. We would essentially need to watch over his shoulder every time we see his name in the review queues.

Journeyman Geek

So ... Its always about the actions, not the people. Just ends up in less bitterness that way

If he keeps making bad reviews just let us know, and we'll see what we can do

I don't think there's a manual way to to a review ban

I'll check for the next time. But I'd also like to educate the user

n8te

Oh, I thought there was? I've seen it happen on SO. At least people come to meta claiming a mod manually banned them.

Run5k

Agreed... and he has been making bad reviews the entire time since he crossed the 3000 reputation points barrier.

Journeyman Geek

07:16

People claim MANY things.

I'm going to check to see if I'm TOTALLY WRONG about this review ban though ;)

n8te

Have a read at of this conversation a little to see that they indeed aren't undertstanding their job as a reviewier: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/84951/about-my-posts

But anyway, thanks Geek

Run5k

When you have a few minutes to spare, read the "About my posts" chat discussion. We have been trying to politely educate the user, and it just doesn't sink in. Full disclosure: I also have a teaching degree! :-/

Journeyman Geek

._.

n8te

And now you've effectively tasked me with a homework assignment to go find an SO meta post where a mod told a user he manually review banned them :)

Self-imposed homework assignment, but still

Journeyman Geek

@n8te I'll check with other mods ;)

n8te

07:29

"This is why it often takes us a while to respond to custom flags asking us to ban particular users for bad reviews, especially if such flags don't come with specific terrible reviews as examples.

It would greatly speed this up to have an addition to the moderator menu on reviews cases. From that review case, we could choose to ban select reviewers based on that review, it could pre-populate the ban reason with the URL to the review and suggest a ban duration based on the number of previous review bans by that user. " --from a mod https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/272472/better-revi…

@JourneymanGeek - thanks

Journeyman Geek

ugh

the Mod UI is terrible ._.

Run5k

Even after everything that @n8te, @fixer1234, and I said, he emphasized that "if some one rejects must put the view point for readers as well for the answerer also,, otherwise it should be considered as personal,, or baseless." In other words, he doesn't want to offend people by rejecting their proposed edits, and his stats support that: only two rejections out of 46 edit suggestions, and those were probably review audits (which he has also been known to approve).

Journeyman Geek

he can skip!

I skip a lot of em

which is a point I've made a few times

n8te

He should but there's no question in my mind that he won't. The problem is that when he chooses to accept and improve the edit, it bypasses the need for an additional person to approve the review, which is how that one shockingly bad approval to that canonical question made it through.

sigh oh well, what can you do :/

Journeyman Geek

roll back, custom flag ;p

Ok so we can review ban someone manually

the process is utterly utterly arcane and well hidden

Run5k

07:39

Agreed... I don't think that he will, either. We could post an extensive list of errors, like this one.

Journeyman Geek

ugh. That's something we'd rather not have people do

(least that's the idea I got the last time, when we were talking about a spreadsheet)

Run5k

He did an "Improve edit" from proper grammar to bad grammar, specifically on the sentence that simply asked for help.

Journeyman Geek

just custom flag. We know there's an issue and we'll figure out to deal with

rofl.

._.

I cannot complain

I did one this week ._.

I was also having 4 conversations at once.

Run5k

@JourneymanGeek, needless to say we appreciate all of your time and effort, and I truly understand that this contributor has the very best of intentions. However, he doesn't seem to understand the concept that he just shouldn't edit the suggestions within the review queue, and nothing we say is going to stop him.

Journeyman Geek

@Run5k if it continues, we'll deal.

._.

@Run5k as I said, roll back, custom flag the post. If they get rejected, say I asked y'all asked you to

n8te

07:43

I'd suggest making me deputy mod for a day and I'll run amok with my ban hammer

Journeyman Geek

which is why we don't make people deputy mods for a day XD

n8te

:)

Journeyman Geek

A lot of moderation's really trying to working out how to deal with stuff without.. well..

using all those shiny tools

Don't get me wrong, I handle a lot of flags

n8te

07:59

If I ever run for mod, don't vote for me. I'm too tempted by shiny tools

Journeyman Geek

@n8te To me what makes a great mod is meta

Meta's what seperates the tool using monkeys from the 800lb gorillas ;p

I'm actually now trying to learn how to use main meta as a mod again

After getting SU meta down, and barely working out MSE :)

n8te

You seem to have it down pat, no? At least from what I can tell

Journeyman Geek

lol

Still working it out, tbh

You never get all of it down

n8te

08:15

Well, it is kind of a jungle over there

Journeyman Geek

I was having this conversation with someone else actuallyy

The sort of people who do well on techie SE ....

rarely have the soft skills to handle meta

I've got a wierdass background and nearly ended up in politics...

n8te

I agree with that. A lot of techies are introverts

Journeyman Geek

Yup

I am too

n8te

I can see you as a politician though

Journeyman Geek

I'm just apparently really good at hiding it

Oh god, no.

n8te

08:18

You're diplomatic

Journeyman Geek

Opposition politics here's a career path that's unlikely to end well ;)

n8te

Ahh I see

Journeyman Geek

And I'm not exactly the sort of high flyer the government prefers

Heh, you should see all the things I want to say, and don't ;)

n8te

Any hopes of following in Catija's footsteps and getting hired on here? You seem like a logical choice

Journeyman Geek

I donno

If there's opening, I'll be applying

That's all I can promise

there's a lot of folks with the talent to be awesome CMs ;)

n8te

08:21

Yeah but being a meta mod now puts you ahead of a lot of them

Journeyman Geek

Maybe. But there's a few folks I see as having better qualities to be a CM :)

I just need to wait out enough to get hired first XD

n8te

Bide your time

Journeyman Geek

That's how I became a mod

:)

well SU mod

The MSE mod thing was unexpected XD

n8te

Things are better over there now. The lost soul questions seem to disappear very quickly

Journeyman Geek

XD

Tink beats me to a lot of them

I actually have to use a per forma comment script XDXDXD

n8te

08:25

Ahh. I did see some of your comments appear very quickly right before they get deleted

Journeyman Geek

I try to hand write all my comments

but it dosen't scale

n8te

Nice. A politician's personal touch

Journeyman Geek

naw. I ironically hate automating mod tasks

basically if it should be automatic, it dosen't need a human

or canid

n8te

Personally, I don't care much for those canned responses everyone adds to those lost soul questions

Journeyman Geek

I'm here cause the system needs someone to make the calls. And if I'm making the call, I need to try to let people know why

yeah. but its too much work to handwrite them

I tried for a few weeks

n8te

08:28

True, that would get old quick

Journeyman Geek

Sometimes you gotta decide on the compromises you need to make .

I don't want to just nuke them.

and there's hardly anyone who tries again, maybe one or two a week

n8te

Yeah, a lot of times I look if they end up posting in the correct place afterwards. They almost never do

Journeyman Geek

I think a few are actually lost

others are qbanned

and essentially - that's actually the least important part of being a MSE mod I suspect

MSE isn't really all it should be. Too much bitterness and grumpyness

n8te

So what's the most important?

Journeyman Geek

If you look at the mod choices you get an idea.

n8te

08:33

People are very freewheeling with their downvotes

Journeyman Geek

One IPS mod, me, and a super cool headed, experienced SO mod.

But no one knows how site culture really works, but that needs work ;)

(gently!)

n8te

It really is the wild west over there

It's kind of funny how difficult it is to ask a question that doesn't get downvoted

Journeyman Geek

Its a lot of folks who care

But are not sure how to be heard

hah

I got a sun wukong hat there

n8te

What's the criteria?

Journeyman Geek

But here's a secret. I don't care about downvotes or overall scores for a post or even rep

+5 -5 I think

I'm there cause its a good way to share what I know of SE if someone needs help

n8te

08:37

You rarely get downvoted over there. Not like the hedgehog

Journeyman Geek

4

Q: Dealing with "Legacy" posts which... are not that nice

We've come across a few posts as mods that don't really meet the 'modern' standards of SE. Its a bit of a pickle since we can either delete them, edit them (unilaterally) or leave them alone. None of these options feels very good - in these cases, the edits seem minor, we'd love to have peer rev...

+11 -7

on a topic I KNEW would be controversial

DavidPostill

It's no longer a secret as it's been confirmed in the hats meta post

Journeyman Geek

eh. The hedghog's interesting

DavidPostill

> Write a post on a Meta site (MSE is considered a meta site too) that receives at least 5 up votes and 5 down votes.

Journeyman Geek

He wants to understand how everything about SE works, but refuses to see a few key things ;)

@DavidPostill ya. Now the toilet hat... ;p

n8te

08:39

I lurk over there a lot but rarely post. Just like to keep abreast of what's going on sitewide

Journeyman Geek

That's how I started

Funny story about why I got active there actually

When I was a new moderator, someone got mad at me for suspending them for something. I'd accidentally suspended them a day past a bounty they hard awarded expiring... (If I'd known, maybe I'd have made it longer?)

They posted on meta. I rebutted. I got a reversal badge, then it got nuked

So I was trying to get 10k to see it, then they changed the rules so you could see your own deleted posts with a link

n8te

Interesting

And now here we are full circle again with a suspension, a bounty, etc...

:)

But that's all I'll say

Journeyman Geek

Oh yeah

that

I'm a bit sad all that had to happen.

I feel suspensions are a sign we were unable to get through to someone by other means.

n8te

I don't know the details. Only saw the abusive posts as they came in on main

Journeyman Geek

Yup

I missed most of it - I was asleep but folks filled me in later

n8te

08:47

I am kind of curious how the hog got suspended but it's none of my business

Journeyman Geek

It isn't

;)

n8te

Didn't hurt to try fishing :p

Gonna step away for a few. Check ya later, Geek

DavidPostill

11:05

@JourneymanGeek Just got the toilet hat :) - Seems like it is awarded for editing tags on questions

Biswapriyo

13:55

Can moderators open frozen chat rooms?

DavidPostill

@Biswapriyo Yes

Transcript for

Ask a Super User Moderator