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That's the ticket. LEADING and setting the example

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I don't think mods need to be held to a higher standard either, really, other than that they should be good at their job, moderating.

I was highly supportive in both topics and pm as a moderator, but if I had been fulfilling a quota or expectation to be supportive it would have been less genuine.

Judging a mod on their supportiveness is like judging a support leader for not having hidden enough replies and moved enough topics.

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O` tru apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die.

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Judging a mod on their supportiveness is like judging a support leader for not having hidden enough replies and moved enough topics.

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Quote: from medjai at 7:30 pm on Nov. 5, 2009

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Judging a mod on their supportiveness is like judging a support leader for not having hidden enough replies and moved enough topics.

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I don't think that could have been phrased any better.

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I think I could of.  While I don't agree that we should promote mods/demote mods based solely on supportiveness, I don't think you can exactly make a valid argument that being supportive and being a mod are mutually exclusive.

A support leader is promoted to be supportive.  Moderation is a secondary capability (responsibility).  Moderators are promoted from their position AS support leader, thus providing them with more moderation tools.  At what point do we get to say, "well you're not a support leader anymore, and we don't expect you to contribute to support?"  Who made up that rule?  As far as I know...no one.

Frankly, there are several ways to support on this site, and not all of them involve lolly gagging about being a warm, cheery person in ehelps.  You can do ehelps, reply in the serious forum, reply in the support forums, CLEAN UP THE support forums via your moderation tools (something that goes hugely unnoticed).  

To be frank, I think it's pretty annoying when a good portion of the team claims that they are under no obligation to be supportive in any way here, as that is not a moderator duty.  Yes we're judged on a different scale than an average support leader.  However, it seems we still fall short even on that scale, in many cases.

My promotion to mod happened before i was a support leader then somehow support leader appeared next to my name.

I think it can be very easily argued that moderation duties are exclusive to support. We've had many highly active moderators who moderated all the time but did not really post on the forums much (nowhere near active in ehelps or forum discussion to be a support leader).

Mods should be supportive but it is not their primary role and it is not what they should be judged on.

Every time this has been brought up in the past this is what the mod team has decided, so to me that's pretty strong evidence that what I'm saying can be argued.

I'll leave it to others to fight this battle, it really isnt a big concern to me whatever is decided on that end.

I was always under the impression that sl was a requirement because it demonstrated leadership and at least 'some' moderating powers, rather than because mods needed to be chosen based on how supportive they were.

In fact several members who were top support leaders who got promoted were sub par mods and demoted relatively quickly.

Really though if you think supportiveness determines quality of moderation then get the team to agree and go with it. That's the onky legitimate measure of whether something can or can't be effectively argued.

Anyway, in the past the mod team has always been heavily in favor of the philosophy that while mods should be supportive, their responsibility as a moderate is just that, and that they shouldnt be judged on how many e-helps they answer.

You make a good point about cleaning out the support forums, that is absolutely a moderator responsibility.

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O` tru apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die.

My thinking is moreso that as this is a support site, some effort should be made be every mod to work towards that in some way.  I think it's dumb to suggest that we all slave away at ehelps, just as it's dumb to suggest that we all spend time working on improving moderation in support forums.  We all clearly have different strengths, and I would never like to see us all try to conform to one norm.

I'd just like to see that balance play out more.  The mods who are good at modding should be in the support forums, cleaning them up or coming up with ideas to make them better (my opinion, obviously).  The mods who are more personal with members should be making an effort to work on ehelps and post in support forums.   As a whole, I don't think there is any excuse for any mod to have no part in improving support whatsoever.

One (well im not sure how seriously they are taken at the moment) possible way to try and improve is to consistently (hopefully not you by yourself) place a noticeable focus on this in peer review.

I think peer review has gotten more popular than it used to be, or hope it has at least.

I think it would be interesting if instead of having everyone write peer reviews of everyone you 'drew straws' and did one review each, and then in the following review each mod responded to their first review elucidating whether they made an effort to improve where their reviewer recommended improvement.

Then again i dont know that everyone would participate.

Not sure how you should get people to be more supportive other than by giving kudos to the ones who do and letting the ones who dont know that they dont.

If they respond saying they clean the support forums and help in pm a lot, that is likely fine and at least they responded. The biggest issue is probably just awareness i mean if all the mods committed to answering an e help or making a support reply once a day when they first logged on thatd probably solve the issue outright.

Just  throwing out random ideas feel free to disregard

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O` tru apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die.

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Not sure how you should get people to be more supportive

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This seems to be the question that everything revolves around.

Same goes with TSF, albeit to a much lesser degree. TSF is something everyone could improve in all honestly, but that's more of an SL issue than a mod issue.

Post edited at 12:58 am on Nov. 19, 2009 by Niick

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You treat distraction like it's a religion
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