Disagree? LOL I was just sort of throwing it out there for opinion, but I suppose I'll put you down for an "against". I know, of course, that commenting will move a thread up.. I suppose I maybe just need to get used to the FF format, and live with the fact that it's not the same as a bulletin-board style forum. - Brad McCrorey
The reason I disagree is because we should give everyone and every thread equal level of importance determined by consensus of the members of the group not by an admin or a vote of one member! - Igor The Troll
@Brad Are you thinking of sticky posts like "Rules of the forum", "Check Here For News"? Mostly administrative stuff? If so, then yes it would be really "forum like" but I don't have any problem with it. Simply having the ability to make a thread sticky isn't going to harm anything. Why don't you suggest it in Feedback room? - Kevin D. White
Having the ability to make a thread sticky IS going to harm something. If it exists, it will be used, and then becomes a blunt demonstration of asymetric power. I don't want to have to scroll past your officious stickies to see the new content. - Andy Roberts
@Kevin: I'm pondering suggesting it. Just trying to marshall the numbers before I do so. I think I watch West Wing too much. Heh. @Andy: I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying. But, I'm already spending a lot of time cleaning up spam, etc in my room, which, while a blunt demonstration of my "power", is inarguably necessary. I agree that a feature like this would need to be used with moderation -- pun intended ;) -- but I'm still not sure that makes it a bad idea. - Brad McCrorey
Brad, why do you want to have a room unless you willing to moderate it? Maybe you should get someone to assist you? I cannot imagine that you have so much Spam that you are unable to delete a few bad threads. - Igor The Troll
@Brad please don't try to pretend you agree with me when you are arguing the exact opposite. - Andy Roberts
@igor: It's hardly a case of being unwilling. It's just frustrating that something that seems so obvious can be so blatantly ignored. On that note, though, you can now add extra moderators to rooms, which I think is a great option. - Brad McCrorey
@Andy: I'm not sure why you'd think I'm pretending to agree with you, or what possible advantage I would get from doing so. I stand by my comment: I don't disagree with everything you say. - Brad McCrorey
@Brad I agree that you're not sure. - Andy Roberts
just wondering what people's thoughts were of the social environment. especially leaders thoughts - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
The whole election is a charade, there is nothing real about Obama! He is just serenading the crowd. Really bad leadership. But that is an inatte problem with HiveThink. You have a few mongrels leading the pack. And if the members do not follow them, they get bullied. Nothing new, old school junior high school. - Igor The Troll
I really love FF. Cool people all around, well besides a few arses! But just ignoring them and living them to their own habitat maybe best. They want to come out of their caves, they can do it at any time. So we build the place and the masses come poring in! What is then? I guess when not Cool kids join the club it will not be fun anymore, but that is how network communities work. Enjoy it while it lasts. - Igor The Troll
I think Obama and McCain are both fine individuals... flawed in their own ways and both very capable of leading. I'm not comfortable with Obama's actions during the primary and I find him to be calculating in a very transparent way. That being said I can change my opinion by his actions. But I don't like the way his supporters are wearing blinders to his shortcomings on Israel and I didn't like being attacked as a racist for saying he was a racist. I can't vote for his crowd... that much is certain - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
I see a big problem developing for FF network. We have many rooms and they are too specif to a particular topic. Unless we loosen up and stop being experts this network will Fail. We need to make it easily accessible to beginners and make it entertaining before we start discussing industry level dialog.Pretty much make you rooms fun and easy to access by noobs. Enlighten the noobs so they can grow to be responsible users.! Over excessive moderation will kill your room for general public and it will just grow weeds like an old Web 1.0 forum. We may want to set up a general room accessible to everyone where we all go to play and anything goes with light moderation. Maybe Mr. White would be interested in setting up a room like that and getting a bunch with people to help. Keep the room fun and draw a general audiance. - Igor The Troll
Getting past the mindset of there being some class of people who can be called "noobs" and another class of people who can be called "experts" goes a long way towards making new people feel comfortable. If you just be yourself, show your fellow man respect and allow them to have some dignity, you'll do a lot more than worrying about process and trying to figure out ways to coddle "noobs." - Mark Trapp
Mark do you consider deleting posts that are determined by admin irrelevant conductive to the building a room community, at this early stage of time? Or is it better to let some off topic post be posted and even engage with the poster to guide the conversation toward the meta of the room? - Igor The Troll
Why don't we talk about the actual issue? You posted a frankly offensive picture of two people having sex with George Bush and Osama Bin Laden's heads juxtaposed on the bodies. That'd be inappropriate in nearly every public forum, even more so in a previously civil and interesting room about social media. Your comments are consistently either offensive, trolling, or off-topic to every discussion. The problem isn't the moderator, it's you. You want a place to do whatever you want? Create your own room. - Mark Trapp
Just to make my point crystal clear for you: you absolutely have the right to whatever you want within the bounds of legality and human decency, but you need to learn to respect the right of everyone else to react and respond to what you do and what you say. You want to post offensive off-topic pictures and harass and troll people? Go ahead, but expect to be moderated and reacted to. That's our right. - Mark Trapp
Your interpretation of what is offensive is your interpretation and not necessary supported by other members of the the room where I posted the picture which was deleted by administrator. Different rooms have different acceptable material. Unless we have a blanket policy in the FF TOS the members do not know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I also request you to comment on the content of the network not on user behavior. - Igor The Troll
I have invited FF members that Follow me to come here and comment on this! If Mark Trapp wants to start pointing fingers other members of Friend Feed need to contribute to this discussion. http://friendfeed.com/e/f05bac... - Igor The Troll
I guess you were the other guy who posted something that got everyone so riled up. ;-) Except I guess you did it on purpose. Sorry I missed it. - Rick Powell
I posted a parody picture to generate a discussion in a Social Media room. The parody picture is of satiric nature and not pornography! - Igor The Troll
Mark Trapp: We both know we often disagree on a lot of things, but here I agree with your latest comment. I agree until the word "our" actually. I never use this word "we" in a social context. Of course, you're free to use it (and I'm nothing to dictate your behavior) But IMHO the word "we" is a bit aggressive in a social context in that sense that it implicitely says: "we _normal_ people". That's why I usually use "I". That was my 2cts folks, take it easy :) And oh, I've never seen the picture in question. - directeur
Maybe I should Tweet the picture around to the Social Media and SEO consultant that follow me on Twitter and see what they say? Mark do not go pointing fingers! I can also send a few emails to industry leader friends and have them stand character on my behalf. - Igor The Troll
Comment fragmentation is BY DESIGN. When you are at a cocktail party, do you hear and participate in all conversations? No. So why do you expect that online? - Robert Scoble
Robert, interesting thought. I was thinking about this after I started this thread. - Igor The Troll
Thanx for inviting me in on this convo Igor but I can't say i'd be a good character witness since I did not see the pic. If it is what I heard and I was Admin, I would have informed you of the possible disturbances the pic would cause and maybe make the same comment on the post. FF is a global site and in some cultures the post could be offensive or in-offensive. If anything I would open it to the other members as to whether they feel offended our not. - Anthony Farrior
Anithony, thanks for coming over. After I posted the pic and a few Social Media members complained, I left a message on the admin page that if he feels the pic is not appropriate please remove it. The pic was not pornographic but a parody. If we going to censor Friend Feed we have to revise the TOS. - Igor The Troll
Igor: I found the picture to be distasteful. I hid it as soon as it was up on my screen in an attempt to both remove it from my view as well as to keep it from spreading to my friends. If it were posted underneath one of my posts I would have immediately deleted it. That's not censorship. FriendFeed isn't the one deleting stuff: the community is. I hope there's a high standard here that goes above such images. There's plenty of other places on the Internet to post such kinds of images that only serve 2shock - Robert Scoble
Ahhh "2shock". Hmm I'm not in to that kind of stuff so I would have deleted it also. Perhaps a room dedicated to imagery can be made. We shouldn't be overbearing with our ideology. It cuts both ways... - Anthony Farrior
So are we going to have a blanket policy for a whole Friend Feed? - Igor The Troll
I would say no more than one or two business days. Maybe three. - Kevin D. White
hmm - it's been about a week - do moderators of private rooms get notified by email or do they have to check the room for requests? - Kathleen Anderson
I'm not sure. I don't belong to any private rooms so I am not sure how it works. - Kevin D. White
Recently I see some users changing their feeds to "private feed", while it is their feed and they allowed to do whatever they want it does inhibit communication instead of fostering relationships. I really feel it is a bad example to other network users. I personally do not want to subscribe to any user who has their feed private. It makes me feel like I am an elitist, which I do not want to be or do I want others to perceive me as such All of the FF users please consider living your doors open, instead of shutting the noise out. In the noise there is gold, learn how to differentiate! - Igor The Troll
oh well we seem to have chased Strumpette @AmandaChapel off of friendfeed. Interesting. - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
I agree entirely, Igor. I have the same feeling about users who protect their timelines on twitter (with a few exceptions of people I know who have very real stalker problems IRL). It has always seemed elitist and arrogant to me, and I'm glad someone else broached the topic :) - Brad McCrorey
Noah, this doesn't seem to have any relationship to topic of this room. Please explain why this is relevant. - Kevin D. White
sorry... I misunderstood. thought this was a room for moderators... did not understand that it was only to talk about moderating.... that is a rather narrow niche. good luck with that. I try to just contribute the best content I can... and I thought my work was ready to show. I guess now I have brought in a "moderator" issue. glad I could help - AnotherⓃⓄⒶⒽ
Noah yes, now you are being moderated, so it is a moderators issue. So we are on topic. - Igor The Troll
SPAM is not just trying to sell a product. Anytime you try to blanket a message in places where people haven't signed up to get that type of message, it is essentially SPAM. Abuse will get you nowhere fast in social forums - exador23
Room-by-room decision based on subject matter and target audience? - Voyagerfan5761
Who do you think should decide? The admins or the room community? - Igor The Troll
Once more, it depends on target audience. Regular users will probably be happy with predetermined rules, but "power" users will likely want to have some part in defining the "law of the land." There's also a factor of complexity. Simple rooms focusing on one site or product (or company, or whatever) can probably get away with a simple admin-decided policy (no irrelevant stuff, etc. etc.). More community-like rooms should probably get consensus. - Voyagerfan5761
Rayan, what do you mean "local internet applications" ? - Igor The Troll
@Igor Things like Yelp, Craigslist, Zillow, Brightkite, etc, that serve to provide information to people based on where they live, or where they happen to be. - Ryan Kuder
How do you build up the membership of your room? I have noticed that many of the rooms I have encountered have very few members. Not every room needs or should have lots of members but I think it would be interesting to share ideas about how to find new ones for those moderators interested in expanding their membership. - Kevin D. White
Team work! Let the users feel they are important! - Igor The Troll
In my case, it sort of happened on its own. Key was getting the right "first few" - Deepak
Is there a way to "discover" rooms? A room index? A room wiki? I know topics I'd be interested in, but don't know how to find those rooms. I'm assuming there are people out there interested in my room, but can't find it. - Ryan Kuder
There is room index or directory currently offered by Friend Feed. Never fear, helpful members have stepped up and created a variety of ways to find rooms. The two I see mentioned most often are the Blogscoped directory (http://blogoscoped.com/friendf...) and a Google search like "inurl:friendfeed.com/rooms <insert query here>". I'm sure there are others but those two work well enough for me for now. - Kevin D. White
John, I'm not seeing the direct connection between the ideas on your blog and moderation. Perhaps if you provide some context or start with a single post you think is interesting and relevant. - Kevin D. White
Kevin I didn't realize this was a moderator moderator room ..guess i should moderate then join the moderator room.. sorry - thanks for pointing it out.. - John Furrier
Not a problem. The room is public so you are more than welcome to stick around. - Kevin D. White
"“So, I have an idea. It's kind of a blog format, but it is supposed to be open contribution. i.e. Anyone and everyone can post. Are there any effective options for avoiding a blog of that nature being spammed, bar active moderation?”" - Robin Cannon
Hey everyone, I invited Robin to come over here and pose his question. Even though it isn't directly related to FF room moderation I thought the members here could offer some good advice. - Kevin D. White
“The number of rooms and therefore moderators is growing quickly. Eventually moderators are going to need a place to discuss issues. This is the place.”
Excellent. Learning to moderate can be scary but also extremely rewarding. There are lots of questions and very few, if any, absolute right answers. Every moderator develops their own style. It is absolutely fascinating to watch it evolve. - Kevin D. White
Great idea, Kevin - thanks for setting this up and thanks for the invite - Kathleen Anderson
Thanks for invite, this could be useful. - Daniel Schildt
I think public would be better, but it is more work for you to moderate this. As moderates we should be open to all users and listen to their complaints. - Igor The Troll
Igor The Troll brings up a very good point. athis room is currently semi-public which prevents members from starting conversations. This is probably a really bad thing. I set the room up as semi-public so that membership could be restricted to moderators only but I did not anticipate the negative effect that would have. I can see three solutions. I can make the room public or private or I can make every member a moderator. - Kevin D. White
Why not try public for a while and see how it works. If it gets unmanageable, it can be changed latter. The reason that I am concerned some users maybe labeled as "Spammers" but they may just not understand Netiquete. So instead of chasing users away, why not engage them and see what happens? Also we may have a different understanding of what is the norm, while others will have their own understanding. Can we bridge the divide? - Igor The Troll
If public is what the majority of the people in this room want then I will switch it over. - Kevin D. White
I feel another reason that users may be seen as "Spammers" is FF fragmentation, do to search not being real time and the way the user feed following and room following are. Read this thread please. http://friendfeed.com/e/7a2df7... - Igor The Troll
So as you can see not being able to start a topic we have to add our concerns to the same thread, which makes it bad taxonomy. - Igor The Troll
@Igor I see the problem but I want to give other people a chance to voice their opinion before I make a decision. - Kevin D. White
@Trisha Yes, members can start topics in both public and private mode. - Kevin D. White
then maybe it would work to have both a public and private moderator room? More work in some ways, but would solve some problems. - Trisha
I'm open to it. The dual solution has some distinct advantages. If a conversation becomes heated the moderator can tell people to take it into the private room. - Kevin D. White
I'd prefer a public room only. My reasoning is that the mere existence of a private one will breed general distrust and accusations of a moderators clique, which would also become true. - Andy Roberts
I have decided to make the room public as of now. If a private room is needed I or someone else will create it. - Kevin D. White
I hope we will never need a private room! It is best to keep everything in the open when it concerns communication and building communities. - Igor The Troll
Thanks for opening this page to the rest of us :-) - Stephen B
You're welcome and so is everyone else. - Kevin D. White
I almost always set an initial policy of not deleting comments without prior permission from the author. That policy can change based on the desire of the people in the room. If the membership really feels strongly I will bend but it is a tough call. Sometimes the unpopular voice is vital to the health of the room. - Kevin D. White
I do always make an exception for spoilers in discussions television, movies, or books. I have rarely seen people get more upset than when presented with an unexpected spoiler. Ouch. Still, even when warned, people will mess up. I normally handle this by opening two threads or even two separate rooms, one with spoilers and one without. The clear separation really helps. - Kevin D. White
When someone is spamming the comments. One member was having a field day spamming comments with links to odd porn drawings about Twitter. This link brings back a search to all the entries where he added his comments: http://tinyurl.com/6c6ulp - Hutch Carpenter
To date, I've never had to do so (fingers crossed, I never will). The only spam I've had is entries / shares. I'm pretty brutal about deleting them. - Brad McCrorey
Like Brad, I haven't had to do it yet, but I will delete those that are completely off-topic or blatant advertising. - Sharon Bray-McPherson
I've deleted a couple that ruin the conversation. Spam, obscenity, racism, being a total jerk, etc. If they start to behave like it's Digg in my comment clusters they are outta there. - Robert Scoble
I guess I am more of a softy but like Robert I will boot people. I tend to start out with a gentle warning followed by a stern warning and finally a very public booting. Even then unless the behaviour is really awful I will invite the person to return after a day or two. I've never been really active in a community that had to deal with spam so I'm not sure if I will handle that differently. - Kevin D. White
@Hutch thanks for the link reference. That must have been really annoying. Glad I missed it until now. - Kevin D. White
I delete posts if they are off-topic enough to warrant it and comments are gone if they are offensive/slander/spam. - Not Not Geoff Schultz
we need to have a place where we can publically share policy for rooms a la online forums of yee old web 1.0 .. - Beth Kanter
Not every room will have same policy! It is up to the moderator to form policy for his or her room! The best way to do that, would be by building consensus for it between the group members. Once the policy is formed, it would be good if there is a place to add a link in the room control panel. We can call it "room guidelines". But this should be up to each individual group owner to do or not to do! Let's not blanket policy! Do you think this admin wants policy? http://friendfeed.com/rooms/fr... - Igor The Troll
@Igor I don't think Beth was suggesting a single blanket policy but rather an easy place to find the stated policy, if any, for each room. Whether that place is inside or outside FF probably doesn't matter much. - Kevin D. White
Very bad idea to go down the bureaucratic road of creating charters for FF rooms. - Andy Roberts
I think it is up to an admin! A good admin will need to have guidelines, because they would be the unwritten rules that everyone in the room respects. It actually takes more than an admin to moderate the room. It is a partnership that an admin has with his or her users. Guide the users what you think is desirable for the room. Learn from the users and teach them. It is a give and take relationship, not display of Powers. - Igor The Troll
In here, you own your own words. I will not delete a comment without the explicit permission of the author. - Kevin D. White
Is there a reason that members of this room cannot start a post? - Igor The Troll
This room is currently set to semi-public. This has the advantage of making it invite only but the downside is that members cannot start conversations. That's probably not a good thing. - Kevin D. White
