Meta question: Would it be too hard to have all questions reviewed by a mod for editing before they are posted?

Hmm, you bring up a good point about typing long responses and then having everything disappear. I don’t know what the solution is.

I thought I just proposed one.

@janbb Oh yes, you did but I don’t think they’d be able to do that. Sorry, I didn’t make that clear.

I think it would be doable with a few more mods- but the site would slow down by quite a bit, I’d imagine. I’m sure then the arguments would erupt about ‘why is Fluther so slow’ and the old stand-by ‘free’ speech.

Yes – there would certainly be a trade-off in speed and also spontaneity.

What is this, @janbb, the United Nations? It is already being taken way too seriously, as if a poorly worded question or a snippy answer somehow endangers the underclass in Namibia. This is a small social web site with a core group of users. I’m sure it’s important to its founders, and it has become important to me, but subject it to onerous procedures and rules and people will just drift away. It’s a big Internet, and there is nothing critical about Fluther. Sorry.

But what I am reacting to are the increasing strictures. And it is very important to me. Maybe I just have a bug up my ass today. :-)

Try Plurk. I’ll introduce you to some people there. I have a nice group of dear old friends on Facebook, too. If thine Fluther offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.

Don’t you mean “plurk” it out, kiddo?

@Janbb that is a really interesting idea! Hopefully Andrew, Tim or Ben will let us know what they think.

In the meantime there are predictors that can tip you off in advance that a question might be removed.
(this will all be much easier when the guidelines are clarified.)

If a question has:

1. Typos
2. Is unclear or vague
3. Is a poll or easily answered by a one- line response.
4. If it is not really a question
5. If it is spam.
6. title is not clearly describing the question or is too long.
7. It is a duplicate.

Unfortunately also chatty questions are currently pulled.unless they are meta questions (cough cough) but when we have a social area they will be allowed.
cough meta cough….

i <3 dog I hope he is the one that modded me…..

Thanks, Doggie – I do think if there is the man, woman or – err, doggie, power to do it, it might save some frustration. I’m pretty good at spotting a dog (sorry) of a question but didn’t see some of these coming. Another idea might be to post the reason why a question has been pulled; it’s getting a little vague around here. Fart questions – yes (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”) but poetry questions – no?

Our founders and our mods must flounder and experiment for a bit. I happen to think they are a little hysterical right now. If they all become humorless trigger-happy drones like the late, unlamented @Heretic, people will simply leave.

Not at all.

But they will expect cash.

They wont take Visa or checks.

Flounder? Are we back to fish puns? I think we should have a separate tab for that.

Just want to reiterate what I said on the other thread – I think the mods are great (especially the furry ones!) and work very hard. @dpworkin makes some good points. I just want to see Fluther continue to be the funny and enlightening place I’ve grown to know and lurve.

I personally like, admire and appreciate every mod with whom I have come into contact since @Heretic left.. That doesn’t keep me from disagreeing when I think they are in error. The two have nothing to do with one another

@dpworkin You are just full of seichel today, sweetie.

I am sorry for your typing woes, @janbb, but I don’t think pre-modding is a good idea.

1. It’s too much work for every Q to be reviewed.

2. It causes needless delay on the majority of Questions, whcih were OK to begin with.

Too hard? No. What makes a question acceptable should be the same either before or after it’s posted.

Too slow? Maybe. Some are actually time-sensitive (“Help! My floor is on fire and I need advice right now!”). For others, getting a dialogue rolling is part of the entertainment we sat down for, and we don’t want to wait six hours, not even six minutes, to see it posted.

But I agree that there is much to be found in favor of having questions pass an advance screening of some sort. It would save some frustration for the askers and the answerers when productive questions are yanked. It would help uphold our quality standards and offer guidance to newcomers who start posting wildly without learning anything about the culture—sometimes compromising the culture in the process. And it would help reduce the sense on the part of some that they are being unfairly singled out for monitoring.

Here are two suggestions that might help:

1. Adopt a policy similar to what we find on some e-lists to the effect that all posts from new users will be moderated before they go live. Define a new user (understanding that there is some arbitrary quality to the definition) using one or more of the following factors: time since joining, number of questions posted with vs. without changes, number of answers posted, number of points accumulated, and moderator discretion. I’ll bet the fluthergods could come up with an elegant formula that would combine all those factors in a meaningful indicator as to when to let someone off moderation.

Poor behavior on the site would put someone back on moderated status temporarily—or permanently.

2. Appoint a corps of deputies to afford round-the-clock coverage just for the purpose of checking new questions from users who are on moderated status. Allow them to release questions for posting or hold them for further consultation from a duly designated actual moderator. Most questions could get released right away this way, with things that need changes going right back to the users for editing, while anything that is puzzling or troublesome could be held until a moderator can check them.

Some people would very quickly graduate from moderated status and be free to post directly to the site. Others could end up on probation for a long time. And some (I can think of examples) would be on and off. Probably just as now, everyone would get flagged now and then; that much wouldn’t change.

I agree with @marinelife. I think things are fine the way it is now. Pre-modding will do nothing but slow down posting a Q on Fluther.

I don’t like this idea. I would hope that a site like Fluther which subscribes itself to maturity and constructive matter would have no need of such a thing.
Having questions pulled is annoying, whether they’re mine, or one I answered, but it does have its use and I think it keeps the site clean enough…a holding pen is bloody hell.

I went to the official Stephen King website and they got forums, I was all happy and excited…until I discovered that every single thing you posted was put in a queue for reviewing by mods, and it took like 24 to 48 hours for your post to appear.

I never went back. What’s next, is Fluther gonna close on the weekends now?

It’s something we’ve considered—a ‘sandbox’ area—but I think there are better ways of solving the “oh man i just wrote a long response and I lost it!” problem.

We may revisit it.

Thanks for responding @andrew. I know things are in flux around here, just trying to think of ways to decrease frustration without stifling all of our brilliance.

It’s a good idea. I think right now the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, but that could definitely change.

Yes, I can certainly see what the drawbacks are, but there are some frustrating things going on.

Hey – I have a better solution. Allow only joke answers for the first several posts. Then you can pull the question and the inappropriate answers all at the same time!

^^. Always have to carpal about something, don’t you?

Man, did I write “I think things are fine the way it is now”?
That should be “I think things are fine the way they are now.”

@andrew I just had typed a long entry and was about to post when a message came up from richardhenry that the question was being moved to mod. That was great! It gave me a chance to copy and paste the answer somewhere else so I can retrieve it if the question comes back. Is this an innovation?

YAY!

It must be new! How exciting!

@Dog I was very pleased with it.

Now I want to see it!

Don’t know if it’s really an innovation or just caught it at the right time?

@janbb You just caught it at the right time. Either that or we’ve sprung the help of beneficial code gnomes.

“Beneficial code gnomes” can you buy them online?

Hmm…I answered a sandwich question yesterday and when I went to submit, I saw no such thing…fortuntely, I had my message copied elsewhere, I never write any long answers in the Fluther box cuz it’s annoying how it moves aorund when other people are seen crafting shit.

@Andrew: Help springs eternal?

A holding pen (or delay system) would be terribly frustrating.

And if you are giving long answers to interesting questions that are being pulled, then maybe they shouldn’t have been pulled. Because if they’re so wrong, out-of-guidelines, or whatever… what is it about these questions that attract you to answer them?

By the way, I have the same gripe you do… giving long answers to questions that are pulled. And I’m sure if I nitpicked the guidelines with a comb, I could figure out why such questions were pulled. But at the top of my head, each instance is a disappointing mystery.

Your problem would disappear if such questions were not pulled to begin with. No need for even more tangles.

Pre-modding every question would be the death of this website, both from a user point of view, and a mod point of view too, I’m sure.

I am thankful for the light-touch intelligent modding that usually occurs.