I was just sayin in an effort to keep the tag for those inactive TH that a new role be designated.
Pruning works just as well though.
Back to the origination of this discussion though, we really don’t need any more mods, however “trusted hackrs” you can never have enough of.
That was my original point, and quite a few agreed even TH, maybe a more internal discussion amongst Michael, violette and the TH is necessary here, but that was my major point of contention.
Kidding aside, I appreciate the introspection and am in support of an open discussion to invite constructive feedback.
Removing the “trusted_hackr” status doesn’t mean your contribution is no longer valued though. There are many participants who have contributed great insights but have never been nominated as @trusted_hackrs simply because they have never been consistently active. Many businesses have been invaluable participants too but they can’t be part of @trusted_hackrs because of the potential conflict of interest that comes with the moderation privilege. We have always seen @trusted_hackrs as community leaders – folks the community can look to when they need help. The recognition is also a way for the community to say thanks for their active contribution.
We can certainly reconsider how we approach the @trusted_hackrs membership. Perhaps the name is misleading. By no mean we are “demoting” a member when they are not re-nominated. Like you said, we all need a break periodically.
I suggest considering removing moderator rights from the TH, keep all the current Trusted Hackr titles on the current TH’s and promote some of the TH’s to actual “Forum Moderator.”
Obviously, this is separate from “Admin,” but I do agree with a lot of the suggestions here that maybe Trusted Hackr title should not be a synonym for Moderator.
On a personal note, I was pretty stunned when the community first voted for me to be a Trusted Hackr because I was very active on trying to help as many people out as possible… My life has since changed and I’ve moved continents and I’m probably one of those TH’s who just don’t contribute as much any more. I know there’s a handful of PM’s in my inbox of people I’ve personally helped and that’s definitely made me feel appreciative of the community and grateful for the opportunity.
I disagree that we should separate Trusted Hackr into several specific “elite” titles. I don’t think we need more titles to go around, but there should be a clear distinction of who the moderators are apart from who the members are that have been acknowledged by the community for their contributions.
Thanks for the point of view. We gotta give it a deeper thought. In the meantime, please also consider this: most of us didn’t become Trusted Hackrs because we love moderating. We moderate because we are like you who love helping others but also recognize that for a community to sustain its health, we all need to shoulder, when we can, the dirty work of moderation. Very few people would volunteer to be hated by folks @ethanrs represents. Moderation is an onerous and thankless job.
I agree and I think moderators shouldn’t be voted by the community, rather appointed by the site owners/admins. Each choice should be carefully considered for many factors and selected because they’ll moderate to the best ability possible. Just my thoughts. You and @michael have already put a lot of time and effort into this site and shows.
We never said we hated anyone, but some moderators are constantly condescending toward dealers and brokers and do little to moderate or add substance to the forum. We pay to advertise and would assume that with that subscription comes the right of not being harassed by power hungry mods.
We love 99% of the trusteds, there’s only 1 we would veto. So far there are 8 dealers and brokers that would vote to veto that one unnamed trusted hacker.
I won’t name the person publicly but if Michael & Victoria want to hear from the community we would all be happy to express our opinions in a group PM.
It could be changed so that a moderator would need to be “seconded” by another moderator before being able to delete a post or lock a thread. This might slow down the “overzealous” moderation that some users are complaining about.
The overzealous closing of treads is upsetting. At one point max_g was on a hot streak and inertia pushed him into closing a few prematurely…otherwise he’s done some good work around here.
On the demotion aspect: If we end up demoting a TH, let’s make a new group for them. The group should be used for ex-TH and for TH that do not want to moderate. That way, they still retain their “position” but without certain priveleges. I do agree that there are some TH that sometimes overanalyze a thread or just don’t like it and use their privilegesfor the wrong, but that’s maybe 1/50 of the times.
As TH are nominated by other users and not hand picked by @michael or @littleviolette why not have an open “reviews” thread for them? On this specific thread, don’t give TH any privileges to moderate. If it’s going to be a community effort to select them, they should also be willing to hear what others have to say AS LONG AS IT IS VALID.
