Should we moderate content and discussions on NYC DUG ? (comment on how we should proceed)
Yes, I don't want to read anything non-NYC related
8% (2 votes)
Yes, delete/unpublish obviously off-topic content/comments which are non-drupal and non-nyc related
50% (12 votes)
I do not care
4% (1 vote)
No, other discussions do not bother me
21% (5 votes)
No! Other discussions provide another source of information i never had access to before
17% (4 votes)
Total votes: 24
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Ical feed
To preserve and/or increase
To preserve and/or increase the quality of relevant content on the NYC DUG site i would like everyone to vote whether we should moderate our content, and how best to do it.
Overall, it would be great
Overall, it would be great if the group would self-moderate. However, I have set my account to receive emails when someone posts a comment and, since there is currently no daily digest feature, and I get a bunch of emails each day that have been pretty much on topic about Drupal and NYC. Getting emailed a bunch of off-topic emails would get old pretty quickly.
agreed
We should ask people to self-moderate, and in the rare case that a post is not on topic, the tradition in this group has been to be polite, remind the person that posted the off-topic content where the right place is and to unpublish that post.
It's happened probably 10 times in the over 2 years this group has existed. It's not a rampant problem because most of the time people are good at self-moderation.
The past week or two, I've started getting too much non-nyc related emails from this group and I'm interested in making sure that our current group manager continues the policy that has been in place in the past.
I'd rather let the group self-moderate
It might be a good idea to post some guidelines somewhere pointing people to the best places for various common topics, but in general I think a "hey, move this to xyz" response is fine for handling the occasional off-topic thread that goes on too long. Sometimes people do want local feedback on a general issue, or whatever. I'd rather let that be a group discussion than an individual one.
Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com – Drupal hosting
Deleting/unpublishing
Deleting/unpublishing off-topic/spam posts is standard practice on G.D.O. Are any other G.D.O groups moderated?
moderation was a bad choice of words
what is under debate is that our current group manager does not believe that Deleting/unpublishing off-topic/spam posts is standard practice on G.D.O.
he's referring to that standard practice as moderation, which for many has a different meaning. simply a bad choice of words. we're talking about the unpublishing of off topic content, not setting up a moderation system for approval of content before it's posted.
Pls define off-topic
Is an NYC Drupal user asking the NYC Drupal group a question, regardless of what that question is, ever off topic (ok, fine - trying to sell us on a ponzi scheme doesn't fly, but you get the point)? I personally find it interesting and helpful to hear what other members of the NYC Drupal community are thinking about, talking about, struggling through, and succeeding with. And I also find it valuable to hear what others have to say about those issues (whether it's nyc-specific or more of a global question/concern/success story). Conceivably, there is always a better place to discuss something. In my opinion, if we want to censor our group for only NYC topics, then the only thing we'll talk about is planning events and governance and that just isn't fun.
Hope you enjoyed my long-winded way of saying that my vote is for: as long as it aint spam, don't ban.
on topic == the intersection of drupal and nyc
This group was founded to be a place for discussion on topics that somehow relate to both drupal and NYC.
There are many reasons for taking the issue of signal-to-noise ratio seriously. Even if it is not spam, if it does not explicitly related to drupal and explicitly related to NYC, this is not the place for that content.
The history of all the online groups and lists I have paid attention to over the years shows very clearly that those that take signal-to-noise ratio seriously and actively enforce keeping threads on topic are the groups that have continued to exist a decade or more later. All those that took the "if it's not spam, it's ok" path have devolved or closed down.
The more content in this group/the more emails I get from this group that are not NYC related, the less I pay attention to the email and to the group over time. This is a simple fact of online community.
Beyond the reasons that it is important to the health of this group to keep things on topic, there is an impact on the drupal community at large when we don't point people to the right place to discuss hosting or module.info files. When people look for this sort of information in the future, they will look in the primary drupal.org forum, not here. So by not pushing off-topic content to the place where it would be on topic, we do harm to the community at large.
There should be a simple rule of thumb; does the topic explicitly relate to NYC (if yes move to q2); does the topic at least peripherally relate to drupal; if the answer to both is yes. post!
Define 'moderate'
What exactly do you mean by moderate? Do you mean have someone read all posts before they are mailed to all subscribers? If this was the case I'd say definitely not. I think even unpublishing/deleting off-topic posts is not really necessary - it becomes too much about the individual group admin's opinion.
I generally agree with jpowell & grammarian above. This group's been doing a pretty good job of keeping on-topic. I think some posting guidelines would help, and it would also help to have a few more people letting off-topic posters know when they're in the wrong place - so far it's mostly Eric that's doing it. If we have some general guidelines then hopefully more people will feel comfortable doing this. Should we start a wiki to put together some guidelines?
the removal of off topic content after the fact
This poll grows from a debate I had with litwol in IRC.
In the past, when I found off topic posts, I would post a comment indicating the right place for the post (the goal being to educate the person posting,not to scold them), notify the group manager and the post would be unpublished.
When I did so this time, I was explicitly told by litwol that he refused to take any action. He had decided on his own to change the existing way we were doing things. To make matters worse, not only does he not see any problem with off-topic posts, he's been actively encouraging people in IRC to post off-topic content to the group.
Over the past couple of years, there have been under 20 posts that required such action. So gramarian and jpowell are correct -- for the most part people self-moderate. We don't need to have a pre-posting approval system, we simply need to continue what we've done in the past. Keep things on topic and pay attention to the signal-to-noise ratio.
Of all the content posted in the past few months, there are two or three off topic posts that I would like to see unpublished. It's not a huge issue worthy of long winded debate. It's simply a request to keep doing what we've been doing.
Daily Digest Emails
How easy or difficult is it to add a Daily Digest option for emails? This might alleviate much of the concern about people being 'spammed' by off-topic emails.
digest does not really address the issue
The issue at its core is the signal-to-noise ratio. Digest or single emails, the end result is the same.
There are a number of drupal forum topics that have been depreciated because the signal to noise ratio got so out of hand that it became useless.
Simply continuing the policy we've been informally following for years will address this.
OK, now that we've re-affirmed the existing policy
please unpublish the following nodes, which all fail the on-topic test of being both about nyc and about drupal
http://groups.drupal.org/node/14127
http://groups.drupal.org/node/13912
http://groups.drupal.org/node/13797
http://groups.drupal.org/node/13439