Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Who Moderates the Moderators?
Huffpo has had a community moderation system in place for a while. I think in principle the idea of community moderation has some merit. However, as practiced at Huffpo it seems we may be creating a bunch of Lord of the Flies petty tyrants. The following is just one example. User Artist-53 posted a comment about how Huffpo's advertising had a serious effect on her epilepsy and a "Community Moderator" Hoodoo X replied with a heartless comment that I doubt would have made it past JuLiA for a normal user. Here is a screen shot of the interaction: (click on the image to view it full size)
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That's a very valid question: who keeps the moderators in check when they misbehave? Site owners can probably do routine check-ups, or the most they can do is hire decent moderators in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWell the scary thing is that these people with moderator badges aren't hired at all. They earn their badges by flagging a significant number of comments. If someone has enough time and interest I think it would be fairly easy to get a level 2 moderator badge.
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