Ask the Mods Thread

Discussion in 'Member Casual Chat' started by Nightmare515, Jan 14, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2014
    Messages:
    9,234
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Membership indeed has to rise, also recently the mods have been great so you're right about that.

    Of course with more traffic it will take more servers.. I'm not a mod so I don't know much about their hardware or internal situation as far as staff, however soon enough there is a business here.

    I suppose it's up to the owner on weather he or she wants it to explode...
     
  2. Doug_yvr

    Doug_yvr Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2008
    Messages:
    19,096
    Likes Received:
    1,827
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You babysat hundreds of kids here - what's a couple more? Whiner.
     
  3. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It is way too soon to be making claims about "flatlining".

    As far as tracking mobile traffic goes you are misreading the chart IMO. Prior to 2011 the source of traffic to a site was all lumped under the category of "desktop". (Probably because there was no collection of the source of the traffic prior to that time.) As of 2011 that distinction could be made but it is purely informational since it is the combined traffic that counts.

    From 2011 to now combined traffic has almost doubled in a period of just 5 years. That equates to at least 18% growth per year. As an overall trend that is more than acceptable.

    As far as growth goes for this election cycle it does not have to "rise significantly" prior to the actual GE itself. Only a small subset of the population actually cares about the primaries. If there is no increase for the GE then you will have a point IMO.

    Yes, this is a political forum but it is also a well regulated forum which keeps out the riff-raff. Given the vitriol that we have seen in the primaries themselves I have no doubt that many of those who want to vent about the primaries are finding other political forums since uncivil discourse won't be tolerated here.

    As far as I am concerned keeping this political forum civilized is worth considerably more than allowing it to degenerate into what I have seen elsewhere. That kind of "growth" is malignant rather than beneficial to the long term health of this forum.

    One more point is that normal people who like to discuss politics find incessant name calling tiresome so they leave and that results in attrition rather than growth. What PF has can be described as "moderated growth" and since that is coming from quality rather than quantity it is also sustainable growth. That probably explains the sustained 18% growth over the last 5 years.
     
  4. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    What I suspect is that the politicians themselves don't participate but they have staff members assigned to monitor sites like this one for any mention of their names in any context. This is just another "social media site" but since it is about politics, and the top site ranked by Alexa, it is probably actively monitored.

    As far as participation goes there is no way to know. Given some of the topics they might be using it to float trial balloons or that could just be students in college using it for research. Either way it makes no difference because members will post their opinions and that is what matters.
     
  5. Cubed

    Cubed Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2012
    Messages:
    17,964
    Likes Received:
    4,953
    Trophy Points:
    113
    lol and some of them act worse then my 2 year old. Sad really.
     
  6. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Balancing traffic and servers are not the only parameter that needs to be monitored. The software platform itself needs to be updated and refined (or replaced) depending upon the loads.

    Yes, the owner does need to decide for themselves as to what they want to do in the future. Bear in mind that if "membership explodes" then the workload on the moderators will rise exponentially too. Finding enough moderators for the current load is a challenge given some of what I have read so "exploding" the staff to accommodate the "exploding membership" might be the toughest part of the decision making process.
     
  7. Doug_yvr

    Doug_yvr Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2008
    Messages:
    19,096
    Likes Received:
    1,827
    Trophy Points:
    113
    We're all two year olds at heart. Some of us conceal it better is all :cool:
     
  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Two year olds have no idea what they have done is wrong but they still love you unconditionally.

    So yes, to the mods, we are all two year olds! ;-)
     
  9. E_Pluribus_Venom

    E_Pluribus_Venom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 19, 2008
    Messages:
    15,691
    Likes Received:
    151
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Yes, Mods?

    Excuse me... but how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Thank you, in advance.
     
  10. Cubed

    Cubed Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2012
    Messages:
    17,964
    Likes Received:
    4,953
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Woodchuck would chuck lots of wood, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
     
  11. justonemorevoice

    justonemorevoice Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2009
    Messages:
    20,592
    Likes Received:
    697
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Those woodchucks should leave that wood alone. I hear it causes blindness. :eyepopping:
     
  12. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2008
    Messages:
    15,026
    Likes Received:
    1,139
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You are extrapolating from a single datapoint and an incomplete datapoint. And there is no 18% growth per year because the curve is not a straight mx+b. A college professor would give you an F for doing a point to point linear trending. Even the linear trend function in your excel uses a sum of the squares linear model not point to point.

    But this curve is a periodic saw tooth. At the present point in the period of the curve growth is not positive its strongly negative. We are in a presidential election one of the most interesting since 2008 and forum traffic is worse than the 2014 midterms. Please that is an absolute failure.
     
  13. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Ironic that you allege a saw tooth and claim that it corresponds to election cycles. The facts don't support that allegation;


    • There is absolutely zero spike for 2010.
    • The next growth started mid 2011 which was 18 months before the election but actually peaked about 6 months after the election (which correlates to healthcare reform as opposed to the GE)
    • The 2014 uptick didn't start until the 2nd half of the year and peaked in the first quarter of 2015.
    • There was another unrelated spike in 3rd quarter 2015 followed by another in early 2016.

    Since mid 2011 combined traffic has been in excess of 150k and if you take 2011 as a start point and extrapolate a growth line you get about 18%.

    There would only need to be a concern if (a) PF was attempting to grow traffic, or (b) there was a sharp drop below the 150k level at the current time.

    However neither of those are apparent in the data from Alexa.

    What we do have from Alexa is this;

    http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/Society/Politics/Chats_and_Forums


    Alexa ranking.jpg

    Ranked #1 on Alexa under ;Top Sites in: All Categories > Society > Politics > Chats and Forums [​IMG]
     

    Attached Files:

  14. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2014
    Messages:
    9,234
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Obviously.... You think maintaining the site would be more difficult than finding mods?
     
  15. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    This site is running VBulletin v4 by the looks of it. That has been superceded by v5 so at some stage v4 will no longer be supported and it will have to either upgrade or move to a different platform. (The same would apply even if it was v5 because v6 would come out at some stage.) That is how software is maintained and used.

    No, it is not more difficult than finding mods but it is a challenge that has it's own difficulties. Neither is an easy task and both are time consuming. The technical challenge of maintaining forum software can be met by paying for the necessary expertise but that costs money which lowers profits. Mods need to be recruited and motivated to do the job and that is a management skill that is needed.

    Neither is more difficult IMO!
     
  16. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2014
    Messages:
    9,234
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    0
    It's called "growth" and you're making it sound like a pain in the ass (and I'm not really shocked either)...

    You adjust with demand not before demand so don't get ahead of yourself there.
     
  17. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2015
    Messages:
    50,653
    Likes Received:
    41,718
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Not necessarily.

    Windigo appears to be asking why there is no growth hence his allegation regarding "flatlining". Like all statistics it can be interpreted to mean whatever you want it to so trends tend to eliminate "noise" and give a better overall picture.

    If there is limited demand scope and a crowded market then growth will depend upon how one wants to position oneself in the market. Windigo has expectations that PF "must" grow however that might not be how the PF owners see growth. They might prefer quality over quantity because they are appealing to a different advertising market. Therefore maintaining the standard could be more important than growth at any price.

    Yes, you do have to adjust with demand but if you don't have enough room to grow because you are already at maximum capacity then you can stymie growth. Nothing worse than going viral and not having the capacity to meet the demand. How many times has that happened?

    Some growth is a PITA.There is another political site where they opted to "grow" only in a certain partisan direction because that was the preferred choice of the owners. That ultimately resulted in stagnation because what makes a forum dynamic and growing is the diversity of opinions and fostering healthy debate from all sides. When all you have is an echo chamber then you have limited your growth to only that subset of the market.
     
  18. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2014
    Messages:
    9,234
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    0
    "PF" doesn't have to grow..... Say it wanted to they would have to scale with demand..... In short you grow with demand and NOT with anticipation for demand...

    I wouldn't mind buying this site....
     
  19. submarinepainter

    submarinepainter Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2008
    Messages:
    21,596
    Likes Received:
    1,528
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I know it is late but I was burned and had to go do other things, I still love and miss PF but sometimes we all must move on .
     
    Shangrila and Think for myself like this.
  20. MrNick

    MrNick Banned

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2014
    Messages:
    9,234
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Oh I would love to hear how or why a mod would be "burnt"....

    I mod on a sports site just or fun but have a real job. The real job burns me out and being a mod is just pleasure... I think the worst part about being a mod is having to read endless nonsense and determining who is cool and who isn't after a period of time...... It's the new posters er "account holders" or "trolls" that actually need to be watched.....

    Of course I have to read flagged posts 99.99% of which are garbage flags.

    Sorry about the rant.... Flag me now lol.
     
  21. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2008
    Messages:
    15,026
    Likes Received:
    1,139
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'm not really interested in an explanation on statistics from a guy who just did a point to point slope and called it a linear trend.
     
  22. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2008
    Messages:
    15,026
    Likes Received:
    1,139
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Flamebait seems to be a heavily enforced rule now despite the staff saying for years that the bar for flamebait was very high. Its damn near impossible to go through a thread on a controversial subject, especially one on the transgender issue without seeing deleted flamebait and deleted replies to flamebait all over the damn place followed by a bunch of mod warnings. It really makes for a bad read. Personally unless the flamebait is absolutely egregious I'd rather it stay. No one wants to click through page after page seeing nothing but deletions.

    This brings a larger point of how the flamebait rule is being enforced. Keeping with the OP's request for questions on "when we give out warnings vs infractions" which means interpretation and enforcement of rules, rule 3 the flamebait rule says.

    Notice 2 key operative terms here. "Posts" and "specifically intended". An objective read of Rule 3 as written says it applies to the whole post. This is different than Rule 2 which is applied to individual remarks within any post "Any personal remark" not the entire post itself.

    Objectively read Rule 3 requires the whole post to be specifically flamebait. It seems to me at least that this rule is frequently interpreted upside-down where posts that are specifically about something else are deleted because one off-hand remark or even a single word is cherry-picked and deemed as flamebait rather than the entire post which is what the rule calls for.

    Perhaps the older staff interpreted and enforced the rule correctly when they said it was a 'high bar' because they wrote it and as written it is a very high bar.
     
  23. Pax Aeon

    Pax Aeon Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2015
    Messages:
    7,291
    Likes Received:
    432
    Trophy Points:
    83
    Gender:
    Female
    `
    I don't know what VBulletin platform this was on, or if was a VBulletin platform, but I came across a political discussion forum like this, that had an icon on every thread which allowed you to see who was posting in a thread and how many times. I found it to be very handy.
     
  24. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2008
    Messages:
    15,026
    Likes Received:
    1,139
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You are right its not. But mods have issued warnings and infractions for it. That is the problem.

    It goes to the whole #1 requirement being a perfect history. That precludes most of the best and brightest of the forum being even considered. Smart people actually do poke jabs at each other when they debate. Have you seen an Oxford Union debate? They are brutal.

    So since you have by design precluded most of the smart people you risk getting people who dont even have the reading comprehension to understand the rules. And the more the second tier issue infractions for things that aren't rule violations the fewer and fewer competent people even get considered. You end up with an oligarchy of mediocrity.

    And the whole infraction history #1 is bogus and even against the rules anyways. Here is why.

    Poster A has been here for 10 years has 20,000 posts and 10 lifetime infractions.

    Poster B has been here for a year has 2 infraction and 2,000 posts.

    Poster B is averaging an infraction at twice the rate of poster A but I guarantee you that poster B would be considered before Poster A.

    Then we have the rules violations of the staff taking lifetime rules violations (infractions and warnings) into account. Infractions are supposed to expire and not be held against you after they have they have expired, warnings are not supposed to carry any penalty at all. The staff holding expired infractions and warnings against a member in any context for any reason, which would include nominations for staff, is in itself against the rules.
     
  25. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2008
    Messages:
    15,026
    Likes Received:
    1,139
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Circle the wagons would be a more accurate description. Hell its still not even clear in the rules the exact protocol to an appeal. I and many other thought we had filed appeals that were never voted on or addressed because there was an unwritten protocol that the staff had never relayed to the membership. I only learned of the protocol by accident I asked in what I thought was an appeal 'so is my appeal accepted or denied' to which 'you haven't followed protocol' and I'm like 'What protocol?'

    That again goes to this ivory tower problem.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page