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[Footkerchief]

Discussed; and I'm not going to go through 240-odd pages of members to weed out ones without X number of posts to come up with an accurate number in that regard.
I was putting emphasis on that 440,000 posts thing for a reason.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=mlist;sort=posts;start=780

There are roughly 800 members who have >100 posts.  Obviously posts per day would be the better metric, but you can't sort by it.  Some of them are inactive now, of course, but it's a decent ballpark.

There are about 1200 members who have no posts at all.

About 4500 members (~62%) have less than 10 posts. 

[Mikademus]

I don't want moderators, at least not yet, but I do want janitors that can split and merge threads, and move them to proper places (when they exist).

[Veroule]

I find it interesting that Toady's initial solution is to grant a moderator type power to all users.  Self moderation seems to be the main push of the rules, and it is impressive that Toady is willing to trust all of us in such a fashion.  I hope we can all demonstrate that such trust is not misplaced.
I am actually all for moderators on this forum.  Another forum that I am a moderator of has roughly 3 times as many users but 1/3 posts.  They have have been around quite a few years longer than this forum.  Early in the devlopment of that forum a few moderators were chosen by its owner.

Over the years those moderators nominated other users for moderator status.  Those nominated are allowed to accept or decline.  All told there are 20 moderators there now, but only 3 are really active.  Probably another 3 are in a lurking mode.  The merits of potential moderators were all guaged based on how they helpful they are to users.  As with the helpfulness that gained them reocgnition to be a moderator, all activities in the forum remain on a volunteer basis.  It is actually a small testament to the moderators and users of that forum that most questions are completely answered in the first reply post.

What having moderators does do is free the forum owner from the burden of moderator stuff.  Things that patently need moderation are dealt with in very short order.  Stuff that is in a gray area according to the rules often take little more then a moderator saying, "Let's keep things civil."

When a user is a persistent irritation to users and moderators then we discuss them in a private moderator area.  Generally to no specific end, but consensus in the discussion that a specific user is a problem grants more latitude to all moderators in responding to that user.  The owner of the forums also partcipates in such discussions.

If the owner is irritated then we all definitely are, but remember we were nominated as moderators because we demonstrated a desire to be helpful to others.  Forum owners often can not express irritation with a specific user without alienating other users.  As moderators we can express a personal displeasure, and still have it slightly distanced from the forum owner.  Just another service moderators perform.

Anything posted in the private area of the forum is given priority by the forum owner. If we point out anything as requiring specific attention there, then it would receive priority as well.  This often helps to resolve issues for users faster.

Overall, when moderators are dedicated to the project that the forum is there to support they are a good thing.  Guaging that dedication is the difficult part in selecting moderators.  I would suggest that the sooner Toady starts the sooner his workload will be made smaller.

[Mikademus]

Sure, it's great and all, but letting anybody have a redirection topic when they move their topic, it's going to get spammy pretty quick.
I suggest, if it's even possible under this version of SMF, to remove the redirection topic ability from Move Topic for non-moderators.

Ehrm, first, why and where are we going to move our topics? I think I very rarely might decide that an off-topic thread belongs in the general discussion forum instead, but I don't think you need to worry about redirect spam. And for every redirection notice there's one less thread (that the notice actually replaces) so it will be the same overall, unless you plan of joyriding your threads all over the place.

However, this move topic option might be more useful when (if) we get sub-fora to move threads to. However, people that won't bother to post in them won't move their threads there either, so I don't think we'll escape the need for janitor-moderators by this move.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I'm against and opposed to additional moderators. As has been mentioned, they cause problems. It's also hard on the moderators, themselves.

If it ever goes in that direction, I hope we only get 1 additional moderator, and that's just so that Toady and ThreeToe can be spared the indignity.

I suggest we force the worst, most durable troll in the history of the boards into the job, as punishment.

[Felblood]

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

So long as people are mature enough to not abuse their new powers, I think this change is good. There's nothing to make a person trustworthy like showing that you trust them. This, like any such measure, doesn't work on 100% of people, and it only takes a few to deal serious damage to the trust, unity and functionality of our community.

It only takes one madman to make a community of people, who all own axes, into a very unhappy place to live.

I, personally, don't think that will happen, and I think Toady One and ThreeToe will be able to stop anyone who misuses their powers, before any permanent harm is done. We can always move the threads back, after all.

[inaluct]

I'm against additional moderators. Toady already does a good job of moderating the boards. Besides, we rarely have outright belligerence on the part of our users, so it isn't that bad.

And really, Various Nonsense and the boards that budded off from it are the ones that seem to have the most potentially moderated topics. Very few of the regulars on VN would make good moderators. They would either be too strict, abuse their powers constantly for jokes, or get all serious and stop posting nonsense.

Also, you might have noticed that despite the fact that I abuse the move topic function with the Mobile Battle Fortress, I don't abuse redirection topics. I haven't seen anyone else abuse them, either.

[Neonivek]

inaluct makes a point.

Of all the topics it is the Various Nonsense board(s) that really need the moderators if any.

People seem to take that board as a license to pretty much do whatever they want.

[Granite26]

isn't that the point, though?

[Strife26]

I'm fine with the VNMBF, provided it stays a singular occurence. Since the most recent split, I haven't done much in the old VN.

I think that moderators would be okay, provied they share the 'chill' mindset.