MyBB Community Forums

(2021-02-26, 11:50 AM)Crazycat Wrote: [ -> ]@Laird: it's still democratic, promotion exists in democratics systems. Placing someone in a trusted group is democratic, if anyone has a chance to be promoted too and if the promotion rules are clearly defined.

Fair enough. Maybe I meant more "egalitarian" than "democratic", in the sense of everybody having equal rights/opportunity regardless of membership of any group. But hey, I take your point.

(2021-02-26, 11:52 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]It's certainly a valid point and one that I know has caused me to miss information in the past, but it's a double-edged sword. While some people may post again to add additional information that I then don't know is there, others would just bump their thread every 5 minutes if it wasn't enabled (as I've often seen some people try to do, by the merged posts (and I literally mean, some people have tried to bump a thread after 5 minutes in the past)). It's always been disabled for staff as we've often had to post multiple times in certain threads, its primary purpose for being enabled here is to stop incessant thread bumping.

OK, understood. Are we sure that the loss of information is justified given the actual extent of thread bumping though? In response to Omar above, I asked about empirical data versus personal assessment. How about we try to collect some empirical data and then make a rational decision based on that data, deciding in advance the level which will trigger a decision one way or the other?

Attached is a little plugin which collects, in a JSON-formatted file, a data point each time a post is merged. That data point consists in two fields, (1) the time since the original post in which the new post is being merged was posted, in seconds, and (2) the (post-merge) contents of the merged post.

If you guys are willing, we could install this plugin on this forum and collect data for a while, then have somebody go through and categorise each merged post as either (1) an invalid "OMG its been five minutes and nbdy has ansrd my post! HLP ME NOW!" bump or (2) a valid post about which members should be notified.

We could decide in advance what ratio between #s 1 and 2 would tip us over the point of deciding, "OK, you know, the gain from averted illegitimate post bumps is not worth the pain of lost information alerts", perhaps also considering not just ratio but absolute numbers.

Here's an opening gambit: if we find that the ratio of averted illegitimate post bumps to valid posts merged resulting in missed alerts to new information is less than 10%, and if the absolute number of averted illegitimate post bumps is fewer than two per day, then we disable the feature.

This entails a suggestion, of course, that simply deleting at most one illegitimate post bump per day is a burden on moderators worth the gain: a forum in which members can rely on being notified of information about new posts in threads.

Anyhow, let me know what you guys think...

Quote:is this based on sound empirical data or is it rather a personal assessment based on personal experience?

I have no data to back this up, no. It is a personal assessment of personal experience (similar to @Matt's), based on my experience as a moderator here (for justified merging) and the fact that I don't usually mind if my own posts get merged (though my permissions avoid this, bringing the contradictory feeling that it is sometimes frustrating that my posts are not merged).

I suppose more complains like yours (wink wink) would help on the matter of discussing the update of moderation practices.

Quote:How about we try to collect some empirical data and then make a rational decision based on that data, deciding in advance the level which will trigger a decision one way or the other?

Lets add a poll too then

I like your data collection idea, but you will need to poke @Euantor about it

Also, note that there are alternative approaches to ease this moderation task. For example, a plugin to unapproved posts after being reported multiple times by the same reason (unjustified bumping).
https://community.mybb.com/thread-92936.html

Plus the removing of the limit to specified groups as mentioned early, and possible others.

(2021-02-26, 07:36 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]Lets add a poll too then

But of course! Consultative/participatory democracy is at least as important as empiricism!

Seems I can't edit one into my opening post though, although I do appear to have the perms to create one in a new thread in this forum. Are those (lack of) perms intentional? If so, could you please edit a poll into my opening post for me (which I assume that as an admin you do have the perms to do)?

(2021-02-26, 07:36 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]I like your data collection idea, but you will need to poke @Euantor about it

Done via PM. Thanks for the tip.

(2021-02-26, 07:36 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]Also, note that there are alternative approaches to ease this moderation task. For example, a plugin to unapproved posts after being reported multiple times by the same reason (unjustified bumping).
https://community.mybb.com/thread-92936.html

I like it! It seems like a viable alternative.

(2021-02-26, 07:36 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]Plus the removing of the limit to specified groups as mentioned early, and possible others.

I don't so much like it (unegalitarian), but it would definitely be better than the way things are in my view.

I did add a poll. But probably permissions should be revised. @Euantor (Tagging doesn't work, I will just cross my fingers that he reads this.)

(2021-02-26, 07:57 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]I don't so much like it (unegalitarian), but it would definitely be better than the way things are in my view.

It would actually shrink inequality, quite the opposite of unegalitarian

In utopic democratic civilizations you won't ever will be equal to others, but rather inequality will be shrunk as much as possible while providing equal opportunities to move around the social pyramid.

This is related to the topic at hand in the sense that tense interaction between members should be avoided. If there is no justified need for strict rules then they should be eased as possible.

I mean, I've been active in the support forums since 2008, and in that time I would say the times the merging has been beneficial has outnumbered the times it's been a nuisance 10 to 1. Normally someone else will post in the thread I'd then re-read the previous posts and see the new content before too long anyway, but once people realise they can endlessly bump their posts, there'll be people bumping every time it's not in the top 3 threads. I've sometimes come back to threads after 30 minutes to find 5 merged posts all trying to bump.

What would be good, is to only have it enabled if a user has < 50 posts. I think the majority of the time people have tried to bump threads a lot, they've been new users.

(2021-02-26, 09:04 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]I did add a poll.

Thanks!

(2021-02-26, 09:04 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]

(2021-02-26, 07:57 PM)Laird Wrote: [ -> ]I don't so much like it (unegalitarian), but it would definitely be better than the way things are in my view.

It would actually shrink inequality, quite the opposite of unegalitarian

OK. Fair enough. I get your point. It reduces inequality, and in that sense could be seen as "the opposite of unegalitarian".

However, it doesn't eliminate inequality altogether, and in this sense could be seen to be perpetuating an unegalitarian state of affairs.

I don't want to divert this thread into a philosophical/political discussion, but here's just a brief response to this follow-on thought of yours:

(2021-02-26, 09:04 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]In utopic democratic civilizations you won't ever will be equal to others, but rather inequality will be shrunk as much as possible while providing equal opportunities to move around the social pyramid.

This sounds similar to something Crazycat wrote earlier in the thread. I get what you guys are saying, and it's a fair point. In my own words: even in an ideal society, different people will always function in different roles, and those roles may require different levels of access to resources which are not (and should not) be available to those functioning in other roles.

It's the parenthesised "and should not" that is crucial though, as you go on to point out in your own words:

(2021-02-26, 09:04 PM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]This is related to the topic at hand in the sense that tense interaction between members should be avoided. If there is no justified need for strict rules then they should be eased as possible.

Yes. Agreed. In my own (kind of tautological, but anyway) words: if there is no good reason to stipulate that one role "should not" have access to resources to which another role has access, then access should be granted.

---

(2021-02-27, 01:03 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]I mean, I've been active in the support forums since 2008, and in that time I would say the times the merging has been beneficial has outnumbered the times it's been a nuisance 10 to 1. Normally someone else will post in the thread I'd then re-read the previous posts and see the new content before too long anyway,

Fair enough. I also often see new content before too long anyway, but it would be nice to have a better guarantee than that.

(2021-02-27, 01:03 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]but once people realise they can endlessly bump their posts, there'll be people bumping every time it's not in the top 3 threads. I've sometimes come back to threads after 30 minutes to find 5 merged posts all trying to bump.

What do you think of the plugin to which Omar linked as a solution to this problem?

(2021-02-27, 01:03 AM)Matt Wrote: [ -> ]What would be good, is to only have it enabled if a user has < 50 posts. I think the majority of the time people have tried to bump threads a lot, they've been new users.

The only problem I have with that is that not every user with < 50 posts is going to be an illegitimate thread-bumper, and so we'd still be missing out on notifications which we might want some greater reliability for.

@Laird I think we can then agree the opposite of inegalitarian won't be to reduce inequality but to completely obliterate it, my bad. I'm fine with reducing it as much as possible tho

(2021-02-27, 10:44 AM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]@Laird I think we can then agree the opposite of inegalitarian won't be to reduce inequality but to completely obliterate it, my bad.

We can, but we don't have to! You have an equal right to your opinion.

(2021-02-27, 10:44 AM)Omar G. Wrote: [ -> ]I'm fine with reducing it as much as possible tho

No problem!