Moderation

I think there should be no moderation other than racist or threatening language (or SPAM etc). Otherwise, let people discuss things however they please.

The one exception--video. I'm a stills only person. I would prefer this site not embrace the "convergence" of videography into photography matters. If this site is going to nonetheless allow it, then ok, but when the topic comes up (say a new camera is introduced and someone criticizes its video specs) I should be able to say "it doesn't bother me, I know others feel otherwise but to me photography and videography are separate worlds and the camera should be tailor made for one or the other exclusively"--without being overtly ugly nonetheless I should be able to state my opinion thus.

Hi! delicate subject.

You are probably aware of the discussion on this subject on MyBB by Alan.

For me, DPR needs moderators but not neurotic dictators.
Personally despite several years at DPEVIEW and more than 5,400 positions
I've been banned from posting on a forum for over two years now. without having had a warning or comments from the Moderator. And I don't even know by whom. And I decided to forget this forum.

But I know two particularly abusive moderators on DPREVIEW who would be particularly unpleasant to see here again.
Conversely, the moderators on Fujifilm X System look excellent to me. one of them already informed me in a courteous way, and I appreciated it.

I'm glad you took the subject to heart.

The only problem is the definition of racist and abusive. You left out misogynist, which is pretty rife on DPR. Which is why I suggested a panel of 3 to review disputes...Hopefully 3 very different people with different viewpoints

Ha ha. The reality is you know that is what it is / was like there. I say good riddance to the website actually. It totally ruined it. I am quite pleased to see this new forum and better ideas on how it should be run going forwards seem to be proliferating, good! Dpreview killed themselves from within with those moderators. Nice work!

Back in 2013 rafalp wrote: Reporting threads.
“One of must-haves on every forum is ability for users to quickly and painlessly bring up offending threads to moderators attention. In Misago all user has to do to do this is to click "Report" button thats added to every post. And that's it, reported post will appear on list of reported content immediately.”

“…Hopefully next few days will finally bring search function to Misago! Hold your breaths and stay tuned for more news!”

misago-project.org/t/on-the-road-to-misago-03/34/#post-168

you'll be banning yourself next...

Certainly a divisive topic and one that deserves acknowledging nuance, in my opinion. I agree that people should be able to express their opinion - but do so in a reasonable manner.

To that end, I would hope for moderators to step in long before a conversation arrives at the extremes mentioned above. Not to "police" which (photography) opinions are acceptable, but to ensure and facilitate civil conversation and discussion. Even expressing strong disagreement on a subject matter can be done in a fashion that does not attack or insult the individual (or cohorts they might belong to) behind the opposing argument.

I do like some suggestions made here about moderation panels to balance how different moderators might look at a comment under review. This might also be a suitable approach for potential appeals.

As for a look back at DPR, I am not sure I experienced the heavy-handed moderation that "killed" DPR, which some describe above. The forums in which I participated had very reasonable and - in my opinion - successful moderation. If anything, comments under the public news articles (outside the forum) often were left rather undisturbed, even when discussion went off the rails.

I think what helped me better understand the role of moderator better was taking on the admin role of a number of large Facebook groups…totalling around 14,000 members. It is a thankless job, but I agree a needed one. Any help I can offer here, I’m more than happy to assist.

The moderation in the Canon forums was pretty heavy handed. There is nothing more off-putting than putting in work to document why people are wrong (with Canon documentation) and having a moderator delete a post or thread because someone was offended by being told and shown they were wrong.

I'll even use the most recent example of when the announcement was made DPReview was closing and having all of the "I'm going to miss you all, where to next?" threads locked for one or more "official" thread(s) that soon met the 150 post limits. Moderation for the sake of moderation but not to enhance the underlying goal of the forum being a community.

ironically they banned everyone including themselves

The thing I never liked on DPR is when someone says something negative about a product on a brand forum and other people perceive this as some kind of attack on the brand and respond aggressively with personal attacks, impugning motives and so on. My opinion is that as long as people are civil and polite it's fine, but when someone goes on the personal attack and their attacks get defended by other partisan forum members, things can get nasty quickly. It's important that mods step in quickly, take the participants aside and say, "you know the rules, we don't allow that level of rudeness here. By all means continue to debate your points but cut out the personal attacks whether out of malice or simple frustration". It's rarely rocket science: most people can easily see where a conversation is going pear shaped: "you're nothing but a dumb shill", "and you're a troll who doesn't even use the [brand]" etc etc.

What I don't like is mods who feel it is also their job to defend the brand, rather than maintain order. It's no good if a mod lets positive posters about a brand get away with anything, while clamping down on posts they simply don't agree with but are actually reasonable posts. Not sure who "watches the watchers" but ideally there will some kind of amiable arbitration process of disputes between posters and mods long before it comes to handing out bans.

I only got banned from DPR once in 23 years (just for a couple of days) but it happened because I said something about a product that caused the brand defenders to pile in on me in a mob and say some pretty robust and personal things about me. The problem with that ban is while I did start the fracas by saying something negative, it was truthfully negative, and the fuss was caused by angry responses of the brand defenders, not me. It stopped being a discussion and became something that was declarations of loyalty. I was the only one involved to get banned and without a word said to me about why, I just suddenly found I had been silenced. All rather unsatisfactory. Please don't protect aggressive and rude brand defence over civility, even if other posters get annoyed by someone's views. Remaining civil should be mandatory for all posters.

On the question of more serious issues like racism, misogyny etc that does need to be stamped on, but there should always be a route of discussion open to participants with mods to get crystal clear what is and isn't permitted.

It's not always easy, especially when tempers fray, who would be a mod, eh?

Good to see you here!

That happened a fair bit. I would post documentation or photographic samples backing up what I said, and my post would be deleted…broken record reasoning…and the person with the false info would be left up. It did nothing other than allow misinformation and incorrect information be allowed to propagate. That said, I found most mods to be pretty fair.

It's easy to recall memories of brand defenders (of any one brand!). At its root, in others and ourselves, it's likely a strong confirmation bias. From an emotional perspective, we want to feel good about the choices we have made or the values we hold. But obviously that should neither make us blind to facts/reality, nor should it make us ignorant of opinions that don't happen to overlap with ours.

Emotions are human. But where a poster cannot control theirs, it is justified to remind them where civil discourse ends and how to return to it.

Having a working appeals process is essential. I was once banned from a dpr forum over the style of my posting, even though I was well within the boundaries of the style of the mod who banned me. Maybe the real problem was that my style was too similar to his. After I appealed to the admins I was allowed back in within hours. But during the remainder of his "tenure" there was a taint and I was wary about what was seemingly allowable within his private garden. That forum became noticeably more productive after a new mod took over.

There certainly have been good mods at dpr. I disagree with the calls for a summary ban on them becoming mods here, as if the only way forward for us would be a clean slate. We have time honored cultural expressions that touch on that, such as throwing out the baby with the bath water or cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. The logical extension of a no prior dpr mods policy is to also have a no prior dpr members policy too. I'm not going to ask for any dpr member with a belligerent history there to be banned here. I simply don't have to get into the boxing ring with them, I have better things to do.

It's a good indicator of a healthy group when a moderator doesn't have to moderate very often. And most of that moderation should ideally be in the form of keeping the existing machinery oiled, not in reconfiguring it. If the forum rules themselves aren't good that's a valid topic, but it's a different topic entirely. The moderator job description should be narrow, and adhered to. If a bad mod should appear we can deal with that when it happens as long as there is a good process for it.

I thought in general the moderation on Dpreview was needed & e.g. dealt with trolling as best as possible.

Of course what is not know is the extent of the moderation rules & direction were under direct guidance of Amazon sales department.

Staying on topic is a key factor in any thread.

Going off topic such as pursuing ad hominem arguments are not helpful nor relevant.

On the Micro Four Thirds forum the moderators were most helpful & provided much information.

I'd certainly welcome them here.