by David Swedlow
I’ve posted two comments, one to two different posts. One comment was made as a member of the public (I was not logged in). The other comment was made as a community member, where I was logged in. Both of these comments are currently in moderation, awaiting approval. It doesn’t appear that I am able to approve outstanding my comments while logged in. Should the members of the community share the task of moderating comments?
There are several pragmatic and philosophical aspects to this question. Do multiple moderators increase or decrease chaos? Beneficially or detrimentally?
What are the guidelines for moderation?
Centralized moderation harks back to hub-and-spoke structure. Is this consistent with the notion of open source? This question is not trivial, and I don’t believe it has been resolved, in the world of integral or in the world of software.
all members now have \”editors\” status….as editor you will be able to moderate comments yourself and for others……all part of the learning curve….please report to me via email if you have any other issues, questions on using the blog etc
there is also a setting for all comments to be automatically approved….
then you raise the issue of spambots hitting this blog with advertising…
so there is a practical issue…rather than the fear of people \’flaming\’
which is not that big a deal,
although sometimes can be when there are only flames.
james
Yes, spam is a huge problem, so it’s totally understandable why you decided to moderate comments by default.
In some of the wiki communties that I participate in, where the wiki is openly editable by anyone on the web, the community has to rely on everyone who makes it up to revert pages that are destroyed by spammers. This works well in those communities, because everyone pitches in and helps. So, if you did switch this blog to a setting that automatically approves all comments for instance, then it could left up to all of us to delete spam comments as a community, instead of just you. This is what we call “Soft Security” over at meatBall Wiki see: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
i turned off moderation on comments,
meaning that anyone who is not logged in can add a comment, (phew)
Let\’s roll with it and let the community filter:)
j
Thanks for the quick response and changes. While there is an undercurrent of potential criticism in the way this blog was set up, this wasn’t just an administrative request. I have participated in several communities in which self-governing protocols create massive feedback distortion as people grapple with creating resonance. It is not an obvious good choice to allow everyone to be an editor, but I am glad that we are trying it this way.
What we are attempting is no small feat. To act simultaneously as a collective and as a single body with the appropriate levels of protocol. Sociocracy and Holacracy are emerging models, but perhaps we can actually further the model such that it can effectively roll out on a larger scale. I’d like that very much.
- David Swedlow