[meta] Future moderation and investigation of downvote abuse cases, or, I don't want to deal with this stuff

Thanks for your work! Much appreciated.

Given that Kaj_Sotala was apparently the only active moderator, it probably makes sense to at least try to get a new one. We should nominate new moderators, and one of the current moderators can confirm that the people are interested and appropriate for the role.

I would nominate Viliam_Bur. I went through the recent comment history of the all the top 30 contributors, and Viliam has many recent comments and a polite style of commenting that I think is a marker for someone being a good moderator.

If, and only if, a formal official policy is hammered out and clearly stated somewhere, I'd be willing to volunteer to enforce it.

NancyLebovitz seems like she would make a good moderator.

Well, it is clear that modding a forum is not for you, thanks for trying, if ineffectually (Eugene never stopped downvoting), to make this place better. I appreciate you stepping in when no other mod would, and stepping down when many others in this situation would keep making mistakes. Administration and content creation are completely different skill sets, and I hope this negative experience does not deter you from posting more insightful content here in the future.

Thanks again!

I only happened to be appointed a moderator because I was in the list of top 10 posters at a particular time, and I don't feel like I should have any particular authority to make the rules.

You are selling yourself short. The fact that you have a 94% positive karma rating counts in your favor. Being a MIRI research associate also means that you have a former affiliation which qualifies you.

But if you don't want the job, I think the straightforward way is to have a procedure where differently people volunteer to be moderators and then Eliezer as main person responsible for this website picks on of those people to transfer to them moderator powers. Preferably a person with >1000 karma and a high positive karma rating.

I've already started visiting LW less often because I dread having new investigation requests to deal with.

Then commit to never working on another investigation, no matter what the request.

Remember to give Kaj an upvote for this post :-)

Speaking of moderation. Anybody know why the "Radical idea: take over sick countries" thread was deleted?

I suggest giving clear and prominent notification on the consequences of mass downvoting in any "you have joined the list" message, and a similar notification email to existing members.

Also, update the "How should I use my voting powers?" section of the FAQ with the same information.

An "Offenses Warranting Banning" section would be appropriate as well. It should state that it is not intended to be exhaustive.

Strawman moderation process:

1. Get a complaint about vindictive downvoting

2. Do quantitative analysis on the downvoting

3. Based on the quantitative analyses, send a short message to relevant parties. Example note: "I confirmed that 12 of your comments were downvoted by Username123 on August 17th, which feels a bit much. I analyzed the voting logs, and I didn't find enough evidence in Username123's voting patterns to convince me they they are going after you personally. That doesn't mean that Username123 is not going after you personally, but the evidence I see does not meet the high bar required for me to do anything moderatory about it. If you want I can send a private message Username123 that the 12 votes downvotes on August 17th seem a bit excessive."

4. If the aggrieved party does not feel that their grievances have been addressed, try to talk it out. You are under no obligation to make sure they leave happy. Some of your decisions will have to be unfair and arbitrary, and that is life.

5. If Username123 is acting unacceptably, message them repeatedly and more and more explicitly. After a few messages, tell them that if they continue this behavior they will be banned. If they continue, ban them.

Keep the criteria for what constitutes abusive behavior consistent and quantitive, but opaque. The criteria are neither based on your arbitrary whims nor transparent enough to be gamed or become a rathole of debate. Anyone approaching the line will have received enough warning messages to know and turn away.

From the previous discussions of this, I still maintain that a possibly minor code change would be worth investigating to reduce the moderator load: only allow upvotes to affect user karma, instead of both upvotes and downvotes. The overwhelming complaints seem to be not so much that comments are downvoted, but that user karma can drop precipitously as a result of a downvoting campaign. Preventing negative votes from affecting karma greatly reduces that.

Where we disagree is interesting for discussion's sake; where we agree is interesting for community building.

That said, I don't have a clear idea on whether we need to do something about 'inability to post due to negative karma' if this change is implemented.