We need more moderators to monitor deals

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  Megan on 12/04/2009 - 10:22

  You demand?? Maybe request or suggest it be discussed may have been a little bit more polite?

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  Kranbone on 12/04/2009 - 10:38

  I think Scotty is away at the moment as it's Easter but I'm sure he will respond and find a solution to the problem. I also agree that lately there has been a change for the worse where people seem to be using this place for free publicity rather than revealing a bargain.

  I would like to volunteer my services (my working hours have been cut so I have time and feel like doing something worthwhile) to either help monitor deals or help scotty rewrite the rules so that everyone can have a more clearer understanding of what is acceptable and what is not :)

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  neil on 12/04/2009 - 11:39

  There's about 4 of us right now, removing deals that are against the rules. Some SPAM/duplicates we can see off the bat but some deals are only flagged for us via negative voting. More mods would help but maybe some kind of delaying for new deal posters could help. Not sure if that is technically possible.

  Kranbone, you can edit our rules, http://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/help:deal_posting_guideline….

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    Kranbone on 12/04/2009 - 12:05

    Thanks for the link. I wanted to have a wider discussion on the rules though before I changed anything (I don't want to upset anyone, rather help). With some spare time on my hands I suppose I could even lend my hand to helping the moderators by alerting them to deals which aren't appropriate (phony, spam etc).

    Perhaps an alert mod feature or I could add you to my contact list. I don't even mind signing up to help moderate either.

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  AntMan76 on 12/04/2009 - 11:54

  Why not make it that the first 'x' number of deals by a new user must be approved by a mod/admin? I know, this might delay some of the genuine deals but will certainly weed out the spammers.

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    pauly on 14/04/2009 - 01:47

    I think this is a bad idea. If the sites grow, so will the number of deals being posted, and the number of posts the mods have to filter through will grow by the day. IMHO, automation should be the best way to go. I personally think that the votes (from the public) on bargain posts have taken good care of spam-style bargains.

    I observe that spams are very frequent now in the forum post, where it is not moderated as actively (with public participation) as the bargain posts. Just a suggestion, perhaps scotty might want to look at implementing a "report post" link, where after a certain number of reports, the post gets removed temporarily and awaits moderation from the mods. That way, mods have far less posts to filter through.

    So conclusion, I still think public participation is the best way to minimize spam here.

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      neil on 14/04/2009 - 10:13

      A report post link would be good but not too sure about automatic removal though as the same people who negative COTD, EBAY, gambling, and religious deals would probably hit that button if they knew the deal would be removed. But if the button email the mods, it would greatly help us mods with the spam, dupes and such. Currently, we have to go through the new deals and see if anything is suss, then go through a list of deals which have negative votes, then go through the forums…so yeah anything to get our attention would be great ;)

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  scotty on 14/04/2009 - 19:18

  I am back from Easter break… Still a bit too tired (+ too busy) to work on a new solution. A bit of summary so far:

  • Deal posting needs a bit of moderation.
  • Forum posting also needs a bit of moderation.
  • Number of moderators (currently at 4) might be a bit low when OzBargain gets around 20k visitors a day. Thanks to Kranbone for voluntary but I need to review that.
  • Reporting link would be a good feature, but automated removal needs a bit more thoughts. It would be something like "Ring a mod" just to get attention of any mods that are online.
  • "First x-number posts need to be moderated" would put too much work on the moderators. OzBargain has always been user-moderated and it works well so far. Big thanks for those who voted down the spams.

  Anything else?

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    Kranbone on 15/04/2009 - 12:05

    Scotty I like the idea of the report link but keep in mind you could have someone with a grudge go around and report every deal, even if it's genuine. Sadly nothing is foolproof and there are people out there who may want to make your job harder. I sent you a message so hope you get round to reading it :)