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Official Suggestions Thread

Stitch

AKA Patrick
Joined
Aug 13, 2013
Mod elections
What would constitute members that are eligible to elect them? Can members that haven't been on on years vote for mods? How long would the election process take? What would constitute somebody that could be elected to be a mod?

Before we'd even be able to allow people to vote for mods these questions somehow need to be answered by the community. I wouldn't against mod elections personally, but I think we would need to go into the idea with a little more thought than "Mod elections."
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
This might be a hard question to answer before the merge, but do we even need additional mods? From my perspective it's fine the way it is.
 

Stitch

AKA Patrick
Joined
Aug 13, 2013
This might be a hard question to answer before the merge, but do we even need additional mods? From my perspective it's fine the way it is.
The plan rn, I believe, is to add one of two mods from ZI once the merge happens.
And if you were talking about the idea behind mod elections, I'd assume that we'd act as if the current mods aren't mods for the sake of the election and act like it's a clean slate, but probably keep them on as mods until after the election is over. I assume the same would happen for the CC's and Admin.
 

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
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I don't like the idea of mod elections. That's essentially giving residents of a town the right to elect new members of the police force. I can see more harm than good coming from that. Modship is something that is earned, and deservedly so for most people, being able to elect new mods would take that away and would, as a result, lessen the importance of the job. There would also, unboubtably, be overwhelming amounts of power abuse by people who get elected but don't truly deserve it. Overall, I don't see it as a very good idea.
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
The plan rn, I believe, is to add one of two mods from ZI once the merge happens.
And if you were talking about the idea behind mod elections, I'd assume that we'd act as if the current mods aren't mods for the sake of the election and act like it's a clean slate, but probably keep them on as mods until after the election is over. I assume the same would happen for the CC's and Admin.

Yeah, I was talking about the idea of mod elections. I think doing it like that would be very unfair to the current staff members who have put in a lot of work for the site, but might not be re-elected for whatever reason.
 

Beauts

Rock and roll will never die
Joined
Jun 15, 2012
Location
London, United Kingdom
I don't like the idea of mod elections. That's essentially giving residents of a town the right to elect new members of the police force. I can see more harm than good coming from that. Modship is something that is earned, and deservedly so for most people, being able to elect new mods would take that away and would, as a result, lessen the importance of the job. There would also, unboubtably, be overwhelming amounts of power abuse by people who get elected but don't truly deserve it. Overall, I don't see it as a very good idea.

Yeah it's a hard one because I essentially think mod elections are a good idea but I also know that it could just turn into a popularity contest where people vote for their friends and not necessarily the right people for the job
 

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
Joined
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Location
eh?
Gender
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Adding on to my previous post, and related to what Soul said, the forums currently have an extremely stable community, the best it's been in a really long time. This is in large part due to the staff. They all work hard and strive to make the forums the best they can be, and they all deserve their positions completely. These staff members were chosen specifically because they held traits that staff members should. A good chunk of election candidates would not possess these traits, and we would risk our stable community taking a 180 and going the other direction. That's not what we want.
 
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Lozjam

A Cool, Cool Mountain
Joined
May 24, 2015
Mods should be chosen, not by majority. However, they need to be a fantastic and fair person on the site. They have to be a good poster, a good community member, and everything.

The thing is, is that we need to stay far, far away from moderator elitism. That in itself is terrible.

I love how relaxed the mods here are, it really does create a really nice community.

That is, however, why I am afraid of both ZI mods becoming mods, and rapid growth of the site that will mass hire new mods.


So, I think to protect our community, we should not have elections. But we should have a say as to whether a moderator is doing his or her job correctly. If we have elitist, pig headed mods, the community should have a say in that, so that the moderator could either change, or get removed from the staff. We should have a say regarding which Mods continue to make this place fantastic, while weeding out those that add toxicity. This should not necessarily be a vote, rather, a group of members should be able to point out a problem, and that gets taken into serious consideration by the other mods and admins.
 
ZU has something where mods post feedback threads once in a while. Maybe something like that could be posted once a year so the mods can know what they're doing well and what they need to improve. Regardless, I think the current forum staff is very good, so I'm not too concerned either way for the immediate future.
 

Ronin

There you are! You monsters!
Forum Volunteer
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Location
Alrest
ZD's getting into politics now?

Mod elections could work with the right restrictions, but there are other outlying issues to consider. One of the biggest concerns is favoritism, or simply put, voting for one's friend or someone who happens to be popular. The HKs got nailed for this kind of thing fairly often, and in some cases it was true. But the key difference is that the role of a rule-enforcer is not at all like electing a stand-in for setting the example. How a person seeks to resolve a situation and how they compose themselves in doing so should both be considered when selecting from a pool of diverse figures with diverse mindsets.

Another thing, would the elections come in terms? Let's say that person X gets voted through and then stays on for Y amount of months while the memberbase sets up for a new round of elections. If not a fixed timeframe, then what would be the determiner for the removal of a mod after they've served? Or would they simply stay on indefinitely until the members felt it was time for a change?

Last thing... Will voting be public or private? Considering what happened with the HKs, I'm going with the former since the people like to know who's the top candidate, yet it could be private voting with public polls/updates or some such. But again, organized elections might shoot a best bud straight up to the top so that may not be the best route to take.
 
Joined
Feb 5, 2016
Mods should be chosen, not by majority. However, they need to be a fantastic and fair person on the site. They have to be a good poster, a good community member, and everything.

The thing is, is that we need to stay far, far away from moderator elitism. That in itself is terrible.

I love how relaxed the mods here are, it really does create a really nice community.

That is, however, why I am afraid of both ZI mods becoming mods, and rapid growth of the site that will mass hire new mods.


So, I think to protect our community, we should not have elections. But we should have a say as to whether a moderator is doing his or her job correctly. If we have elitist, pig headed mods, the community should have a say in that, so that the moderator could either change, or get removed from the staff. We should have a say regarding which Mods continue to make this place fantastic, while weeding out those that add toxicity. This should not necessarily be a vote, rather, a group of members should be able to point out a problem, and that gets taken into serious consideration by the other mods and admins.

Our mods are as relaxed as they come tbh. They prefer to not have to do anything at all unless absolutely necessary. They'd rather work things out member to member as best as they can.

Seems to be a lot of the same way the team here handles most issues. The idea of the ZI mods isn't necessarily so much that the boards need more mods. It's just so the old ZI community feels like we're properly represented in the staff ranks so it doesn't feel like ZD just came in and did a hostile takeover. Sure they know me, but they also know I do a bajillion things at the site, so it's a nice peace of mind to them to have a mod or two they are familiar with around. That's all, nothing more, nothing less.

I don't mind the idea of mod elections, but in this particular case it doesn't work. However, one aspect of all of this I like is staff feedback threads, etc. I find feedback is a crucial reason ZI is as good as it is today, so I am all for encouraging feedback, negative or positive, so we as a staff get a better grip on where the community is leaning. Not sure if this can happen of course. Jimmy and the crew need to approve it.
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
Joined
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I don't like the idea of mod elections. That's essentially giving residents of a town the right to elect new members of the police force. I can see more harm than good coming from that. Modship is something that is earned, and deservedly so for most people, being able to elect new mods would take that away and would, as a result, lessen the importance of the job. There would also, unboubtably, be overwhelming amounts of power abuse by people who get elected but don't truly deserve it. Overall, I don't see it as a very good idea.
Is it really, though? Mods don't just enforce the rules. They also make the rules. Police, for the most part, are meant to do exactly what their rules and regulations tell them to do. Mods/admins make these rules and regulations. At the very least, administrators for sure are closer to say a President or a member of the Senate than a police officer.

You also have to realize that anybody can become a police officer. You do your schooling, and you're in. There's no secret club of people who will pick the best people in the town and make them into police officers. As long as there is some sort of oligarchy, and there is, at the very least the oligarchical figures should be elected. If anyone can be a mod as long as they meet x qualifications, and they are in with a little application, that's fine and dandy, but that's not the case. There's not an equal opportunity, there is not an application process that guarantees a good shot at being a mod, and right now, there's not even any community say. We don't elect anyone. Not mods, not admins, heck, not even community coordinators. That's like if states didn't elect their senators, cities didn't elect their mayors, countries didn't elect their presidents. No one is elected.

"Oh people might only vote in someone who they like and not who is most suited." Umm, what does it mean to be most suited? IMO, that means you serve the needs of the people. If 80% of the people want the rules to be x way, then their elected moderator will probably make it as such. Instead, the staff decide to just assume what people want and often times, even go against what people want if it fits what they want.

As far as I'm concerned, there are 100s of users and only a handful of staff. The staff have 100% of the say. What is the big deal with giving the users 10% of that by at least electing people who match their values?
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
Joined
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Yeah, I was talking about the idea of mod elections. I think doing it like that would be very unfair to the current staff members who have put in a lot of work for the site, but might not be re-elected for whatever reason.
How do you figure? If they are good staff, they will be re-elected. That's like saying the President should automatically get 2 terms cause like, he put a lot of work into the country.
 

Spiritual Mask Salesman

CHIMer Dragonborn
Staff member
Comm. Coordinator
Site Staff
I personally don't like the idea of Mod elections. I can see is eventually turning more into vote for your friend rather than vote for the best candidate for the job, as others have stated is a problem they see too. If we were to do this it should be small scale, like hold elections for just one new Mod to work with the existing staff. It'll be a trail thing just to see if the elected Mod even qualifies for the job.
 

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