I have been noticing a change in how votes are being cast for things like adding code changes, node cleanup, and even title changes (or perhaps I am just now paying attention). A small, but growing number of votes are being cast for keep instead of edit, which effectively blocks an edit.

I originally was thinking that this was perhaps the work of a few people seeing their role as a spoiler, but after reading Editing pirated content links in reaped nodes, I have come to the realization that perhaps these keep votes are being cast to encourage personal responsibility rather than the governing structure taking care of the mistakes poor wording or spelling choices of the node authors.

I also looked at my own values, and discovered that I have been casting moderation votes against what I try to encourage in real life -- the individual is responsible and expected to correct mistakes, possibly with help or assistance from the community.

We used to have a parade around my neck of the woods where a large percentage of the parade units were equine. Some of them brought their own scooper crew or horse daipers with them, and other relied on the parade officials to run through with cleanup crews every so often. As a member of a marching unit (many moons ago), I know which equine groups I appreciated more. (ewwww)

How does this relate to my topic? Should we be encouraging posters to clean up after themselves, or should we be providing a service and cleaning up after them? I believe that the former is more likely to promote a sense of responsibility from the poster in the future, while the latter does not, and may even encourage maintaining the same behavior. Unless a kind monk /msgs the poster, will the poster even know their node has been moderated? [honest question, I don't know that I have ever had a moderated node, so I cannot say]

Perhaps there is a way to have something in the moderation system besides keep (do nothing) and edit (community does something). I will often times moderate a message to add code tags. At the same time I will /msg the OP to let them know that it was moderated and why. Perhaps, if this does not happen already, a message could be generated to the OP if their node was moderated. Perhaps there might also be a distinction made between keep/edit and "this should be edited, but it should not be the responsibility of the community to do it". I also believe that I will be voting keep on all but possibly the AM posts, and sending a /msg to the OP as a (polite) request to clean it up.

That is all I have at this time. I am interested in hearing other's thoughts.

--MidLifeXis

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Moderation voting
by toolic (Bishop) on Sep 05, 2008 at 18:20 UTC
    A month or so ago, I considered a node to be edited to add code tags. I received a private message from one of the janitors politely prompting me to read Help authors to help themselves; don't consider the small stuff.

    After doing so, I modified my behavior. I no longer consider nodes which contain excessive <br> tags instead of <code> tags. In these cases, I send a private /msg to the OP to use <code> instead of <br> tags.

    Additionally, I now vote to keep this category of nodes considered by other monks.

    So, I guess I am one small source for the increase in keep votes.

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      Me too.

      Now I tend to vote for edit only when poor tagging makes a node: (a) totally unreadable or (b) breaking page formatting (at least on my browser).

      Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man."

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Re: Moderation voting (abstain)
by tye (Sage) on Sep 05, 2008 at 18:20 UTC
    A small, but growing number of votes are being cast for keep instead of edit, which effectively blocks an edit.

    Actually, what "effecitvely blocks" janitors honoring most of those consideration requests is that most janitors just won't do many of those types of edits. The only reason nodes to consider isn't full of hundreds of those ignored considerations is because somebody was nice enough to implement a patch that purges old, ignored considerations after one month automatically.

    I've certainly written several nodes about this so you might want to go look for previous discussions since you seem to be unaware of this long-standing trend.

    - tye        

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      While I understand that the Janitors decide if the node should be modified based on a consideration, the documentation at How do I use the power of consideration responsibly? states under Good reasons to consider a node include:

      To fix formatting, e.g. adding <code> tags around code, adding <readmore> tags.

      The long standing trend is not as documented, so which is policy? The documentation linked from the top of the Nodes to Consider page, or many conversation nodes that may or may not have been read, or perhaps, remembered. Would it make sense to update the documentation for consideration to reflect current site policy and remove that conflict? Even a small change to the document, such as "s/tags\./tags for the Anonymous Monk./" or some such limitation would make it clear that this is not the SOP for moderation. As it stands, the documentation is contrary your stated site policy.

      --MidLifeXis

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      That auto expiry patch has not been applied yet. If you go to Nodes Requiring Editing, you'll see that there are some considerations more than a month old in there.
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        Thanks for the notice and the link to it. I made a minor style update, applied it, and then considered your node to test it. Seems to work great. Thanks!

        - tye        

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Re: Moderation voting
by talexb (Chancellor) on Sep 05, 2008 at 20:17 UTC

    Until recently, I regularly visited Nodes To Consider and voted for the various pending considerations.

    However, I was contacted about a month ago and asked to be a little more discriminating about my predilection to voting 'Edit' when posters included code without code tags. Sorry, that kind of thing drives me crazy.

    So as a result, I no longer visit Nodes To Consider any more, and I only vote on considerations if they're visible on the node I'm visiting. And so it goes.

    Alex / talexb / Toronto

    "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

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      Similarly, I rarely vote on considerations anymore, except when the consideration is for reapage.
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Re: Moderation voting
by Arunbear (Prior) on Sep 06, 2008 at 13:05 UTC
    In fact, voting on considerations only has meaning in cases where reaping has been requested. For non reap requests, the consideration is like opening a support ticket - the request is either valid or not and voting has no influence on the outcome.

    If you look at the notes at the top of Nodes To Consider, you'll find this:

    Janitors only honor a consideration when it is consistent with site policy and doesn't conflict with their own judgement, regardless of how many 'edit' votes it has.
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Re: Moderation voting
by Argel (Prior) on Sep 08, 2008 at 23:16 UTC
    So the problem is if the janitors always fix nodes that need code tags then that user has less incentive to use them. So maybe it would be more useful to add a "Code Tags" or "Formatting" radio button and then build a list of repeat offenders? And it sounds like maybe we could use more janitors? Or get rid of Nodes for Consideration except for reaping? So do the suggestions to reparent nodes, mark them off-topic, or move them to a different section etc. get acted on often?

    Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks
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