One of the problems with moderation is that cooperation with LW admins is very slow. As in: extremely slow. Which means: even more slow than you imagine after reading this. Certainly much slower than I imagined when volunteering for this role.
Using my own moderator powers, all I have is a “Ban user” button which can ban a user. (And a corresponding “Unban user” button.) That is the whole moderator user interface as far as I know. If I am wrong, please educate me.
So, my options as this moment are: (a) ban Azathoth123 because I feel sufficiently convinced that he is a reincarnation of Eugine Nier, or (b) send an e-mail asking for more evidence, and wait literally forever, or (c) ignore the whole thing. From the outside, options “b” and “c” seem indistinguishable, and… well, how much happy would you be if I started using the option “a” as a general strategy?
What would really help me at this moment:
Someone with knowledge of Python and SQL, willing to cooperate with me for a few weeks (an hour or two every week). The task would be: reading and analyzing a few already written scripts to understand how exactly the data are stored in database (hint: it is a horrible “database implemented in a database” antipattern); and then writing a few scripts to generate reports from the database, based on a pseudocode I would provide. I could then use the reports to make decisions.
I realize I should have written this much sooner. Uhm, better now than never, I guess. (I thought I would learn some Python and do this myself, but I never put it as the highest priority, and outside view says it’s unlikely to happen in a reasonable time.) So if you know Python and SQL, and are willing to do some free work for LW, please contact me.
(Note: The person writing these scripts will not get access to any private data. I will check the scripts before running them, and the intermediate reports will be anonymized.)
I tried a negative karma award so he couldn’t downvote and was told “Karma awards must be greater than zero.” I don’t know where a “Ban user” button is.
As a moderator, when you look at someone else’s comment, there should be an additional option between “Permalink” and “Get notifications” buttons. (Parent, Reply, Permalink, Ban, Notifications.) If you click it, it will change to “Unban”.
Fair enough. Just wanted to let you know that although my comment might have sounded judgmental it genuinely wasn’t intended that way. From my perspective, all three reasons for inaction I listed are perfectly legitimate and not deserving of criticism. I’m still not sure whether any concrete action is necessary, although at this point I am virtually certain that it is a Eugine sock puppet.
One of the problems with moderation is that cooperation with LW admins is very slow. As in: extremely slow. Which means: even more slow than you imagine after reading this. Certainly much slower than I imagined when volunteering for this role.
Using my own moderator powers, all I have is a “Ban user” button which can ban a user. (And a corresponding “Unban user” button.) That is the whole moderator user interface as far as I know. If I am wrong, please educate me.
So, my options as this moment are: (a) ban Azathoth123 because I feel sufficiently convinced that he is a reincarnation of Eugine Nier, or (b) send an e-mail asking for more evidence, and wait literally forever, or (c) ignore the whole thing. From the outside, options “b” and “c” seem indistinguishable, and… well, how much happy would you be if I started using the option “a” as a general strategy?
What would really help me at this moment:
Someone with knowledge of Python and SQL, willing to cooperate with me for a few weeks (an hour or two every week). The task would be: reading and analyzing a few already written scripts to understand how exactly the data are stored in database (hint: it is a horrible “database implemented in a database” antipattern); and then writing a few scripts to generate reports from the database, based on a pseudocode I would provide. I could then use the reports to make decisions.
I realize I should have written this much sooner. Uhm, better now than never, I guess. (I thought I would learn some Python and do this myself, but I never put it as the highest priority, and outside view says it’s unlikely to happen in a reasonable time.) So if you know Python and SQL, and are willing to do some free work for LW, please contact me.
(Note: The person writing these scripts will not get access to any private data. I will check the scripts before running them, and the intermediate reports will be anonymized.)
I tried a negative karma award so he couldn’t downvote and was told “Karma awards must be greater than zero.” I don’t know where a “Ban user” button is.
As a moderator, when you look at someone else’s comment, there should be an additional option between “Permalink” and “Get notifications” buttons. (Parent, Reply, Permalink, Ban, Notifications.) If you click it, it will change to “Unban”.
Found the correct control. For mods, the link is:
http://lesswrong.com/r/lesswrong/about/banned/
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/about/banned/
And Azathoth123 is out. It’s not very good, but it’s the best I can do—I encourage everyone to help Viliam make the software support better.
That only bans the comment, not the user!
http://lesswrong.com/r/lesswrong/about/banned/
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/about/banned/
(These links only work for logged-in moderators.)
Fair enough. Just wanted to let you know that although my comment might have sounded judgmental it genuinely wasn’t intended that way. From my perspective, all three reasons for inaction I listed are perfectly legitimate and not deserving of criticism. I’m still not sure whether any concrete action is necessary, although at this point I am virtually certain that it is a Eugine sock puppet.
I should have asked for help sooner. I should have updated sooner that the help will be necessary.
At this moment, I already have a few volunteers, and… uhm, I guess I will publicly ask for help again if the situation is not solved until 1.1.2015.