Suggestion:

Split up moderation responsibilities by forum and moderators. If each moderator had a smaller and more defined responsibility, the level of moderation would really tighten up and there wouldn't be so many examples of excessive moderation (talk about an oxymoron) in one thread and too little or none at all in another.

Many large forums do this. I would suggest that h.com has grown large and unwieldy enough that it would be better served by following the examples of those larger forums.

To illustrate for anyone who does not understand, each forum on the home page would display the name of its moderator(s) as in this illustration:



Salient points:

1) Instead of every moderator reading every post, each one would have a clear idea of which threads are and are not his/her responsibility.
2) Posters would know which moderator to turn to with questions/complaints about specific threads in specific forums.
3) If the board could be configured this way (I don't know if it can), reported posts would only go to the pm boxes of the moderator(s) in charge of the forum in which the offending post was posted.
4) Individual moderation would still be overseen by site administrators to ensure fairness and balance in moderation (that's a redundancy).
5) Moderators would be chosen based either on their level of interest or their number of posts in a forum (as illustrated in the example above) to ensure that moderators have a vested interest in maintaining healthy threads and posts in their forum(s). Additionally, there could be more than one moderator per forum (or more than one forum per moderator) and moderators could serve different functions. Some could clean up threads that go off topic, some could contribute meaningful insights into and otherwise guide discussions, and others could do both.
6) Existing members could be introduced to the moderation team based on their experience in specific forums and their level of good standing. Members who want to moderate special interest forums might have to display some credentials in said areas of special interest.
7) There could still be large or more important forums (like Jewish Fundamentals) that are moderated by the overall moderating team as is currently done.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Sounds a very good idea; but are there enough mods for all the forums?

"6) Existing members could be introduced to the moderation team based on their experience in specific forums and their level of good standing." (I edited a few times after posting so you may not have seen that one at the time of your reply.)

I think it's fairly obvious that someone like Pinchas could moderate the EY forum and someone who enjoys cooking could moderate the Food forum.

Part of the reason I believe this is for the good of h.com is that the current moderating team, in my personal opinion, has gone stale and become overwhelmed by the sheer size of the board.

Good idea, accolade.

mosheshmeal
.

I think this idea is at least worth thinking about (like many other ideas put forth by various members). in some sites they have Admins, Super Mods, and Mods. the super Mods moderate all forums, and the Mods are for indevidual forums. Also it does not have to be a specific Mod for "cooking," there can be a Mod for "thinking jewish" and another for "Living Jewish."

I was yotza my two cents.

Thank you for your additional suggestions.

So far we're up to $0.04.

On the whole, I don't think the board suffers from a LACK of moderation....

On the other hand, I don't think "too much" is the problem either...

Not usually....

they would also know which forums to avoid because of moderators who have certain track records.


especially the stale part.

It would be harder to ensure uniformity in the application of board guidelines to every forum.

this post was a mistake. see post number 14 below.

How would these changes improve that situation?

This suggestion's purpose is more about survival, pruning, and guidance of threads than about enforcing board guidelines. Which everyone knows are not uniformly enforced anyway. As we currently stand, moderators tend to concentrate in certain forums and ignore others. (The same applies to certain posters.)

As well, see my point number 4 above where I write that administrators would need to check and balance moderating teams.

See my post above this one. (I mistakenly posted before finishing the composition of my reply to you.)

In response to this specific question, see point number 5 in my original post.

That's true.
I like this idea.

THanks.