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No more moderation?
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No more moderation?

(1) By Cecil (CecilWesterhof) on 2021-01-27 08:57:44 [link] [source]

In the past when I posted something it needed to be moderated. Lately when I post something it is visible immediately. Is moderation cancelled?

It is not a complaint, I am just curious.

(2) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-27 09:06:28 in reply to 1 [link] [source]

Is moderation cancelled?

Admin-level moderators get a toggle to turn that off for posters, and normally do so after 1-2 posts, but non-admin moderators can wave the posts through but not toggle that bit off. Most of the moderators are of the latter type, so posts often pass through moderation before an admin-level moderator would get the opportunity to set that flag when moderating the post. Thus some users get stuck in that must-be-moderated state longer than they ideally should be.

(3) By Cecil (CecilWesterhof) on 2021-01-27 09:39:44 in reply to 2 [link] [source]

Thanks, that explains it.

(4) By anonymous on 2021-01-27 11:48:33 in reply to 2 [link] [source]

Who are the moderators?

Can the heading of their posts have some sort of marker to indicate that they are moderators?

(5) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-27 20:32:59 in reply to 4 [link] [source]

Who are the moderators?

That's not for me to reveal, aside from myself being a non-admin moderator. (In fact, as a non-admin moderator, i have no way of knowing, for certain, who the others are. An admin-level moderator can see the user list and their permissions.)

Can the heading of their posts have some sort of marker to indicate that they are moderators?

"Could," but presumably there's a reason Richard chose not to do so in the first place. As a moderator in two of his forums, i'd generally (but not strongly) prefer that posts not be labeled as such.

(6) By anonymous on 2021-01-27 20:42:17 in reply to 5 [link] [source]

To ask was just a thought; some responses are highly focussed and pertinent to the issue while others are more like an indulgence of the contributor's personality. Might have been nice to tell.

Do moderator's responses get moderated?

(7) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-27 20:51:27 in reply to 6 [link] [source]

To ask was just a thought

It's a perfectly fair question and i wouldn't argue strongly one way or the other if the policy of marking the moderator/admin status of posters were to change. Many, if not most, forums do publicly mark admins (but many do not distinguish between admins and moderators like this one does).

Do moderator's responses get moderated?

Once any user has been flagged by an admin as "no longer moderated," their posts go through automatically, unmoderated. Setting of that flag happens during the moderation process: admins get a checkbox to toggle that. After that, an admin can delete any post, but a non-admin moderator cannot delete any posts except their own. An admin is free to remove the "no longer moderated" flag from a user at any time, which then causes that user's posts to once again be delayed for moderation.

(8) By Gary (1codedebugger) on 2021-01-27 23:25:55 in reply to 7 [link] [source]

Perhaps, I am misunderstanding or being unfair in some manner, but is there not some humor and irony in the fact that anonymous would like to know who the moderators are and have their posts marked as such? Are there any anonymous moderators?

I'm not trying to agitate or insult anonymous in making this observation.

By the way, what is the reason for the anonymous posting method? Are not accounts with names still anonymous, unless one provides their real full name?

(9) By anonymous on 2021-01-27 23:32:29 in reply to 8 [link] [source]

By the way, what is the reason for the anonymous posting method?

I assume you mean posting as 'Anonymous'; if so, no particular reason other than saving the time to enter credentials and because it is possible. I am aware that 'Anonymous' isn't quite so since I'd be surprised if the forum does not log the IP address wherefrom every post comes.

(10) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-27 23:45:21 in reply to 9 [link] [source]

I am aware that 'Anonymous' isn't quite so since I'd be surprised if the forum does not log the IP address wherefrom every post comes.

Fossil logs (only visible to admins) the IP address from which it receives each SCM-relevant artifact (which includes forum posts), but IPs are increasingly meaningless. Fossil used to use IPs as one component when hashing login session IDs, but that was finally removed about 18(?) months ago because IPs change so often, sometimes causing people to be logged out in the middle of writing a forum post. Many home routers are force-reconnected every 24 hours just so that their external IP changes (to discourage home users from hosting internet-facing servers) and mobile IP addresses change more frequently than that.

Your IP does not expose to the fossil forum who you are. At worst, it provides an unreliable hint that any given series of posts made in rapid succession might or might not have come from the same user (anonymous or otherwise). A day later, maybe less, that same user will, in all likelihood, have a new IP.

(11) By Warren Young (wyoung) on 2021-01-27 23:45:54 in reply to 9 [link] [source]

Yes, Fossil logs poster IPs, but only Admins and up can see the resulting log, so most of the moderators here can only guess which "anonymous" they're moderating at any given time.

Even those with the full caps aren't likely to bother. We're not moderating people to get up in their business. Stay on topic, stay civil, and you'll likely never have to care who the moderators are.

(13) By Gary (1codedebugger) on 2021-01-28 02:40:59 in reply to 9 [link] [source]

Thanks for the explanation. I was, however, asking why the ability to post as anonymous is provided.

From the subsequent posts, it appears that it would be a challenge, if possible at all, to permanently remove a "bad" anonymous poster since IP addresses change so frequently and there is nothing else by which to identify them.

Each anonymous post has to be reviewed always, because an admin-level moderator cannot flag an anonymous poster as "no longer moderated."

Also, other posters don't know with whom they are communicating, especially when there are two anonymous posters within the same thread. Of course, everyone is pretty much anonymous anyway except for the fact that all their posts are connected to a single account, unless some of them make more than one.

If it is provided for convenience only, it seems little reason. I have to log in only once until I delete the browser cache; so, it's no inconvenience at all.

Of course, it's not for me to say, for I didn't build this tool or pay the expenses to run this forum.

(14.1) By Scott Robison (casaderobison) on 2021-01-28 03:13:14 edited from 14.0 in reply to 13 [link] [source]

It is simply to decrease friction. Many people object to having to provide their email and create or reuse a password for yet another forum, especially if they don't plan to be active. The point of the forum is to allow reports of defects (among other things), and the consensus seems to be that many reports would go unreported if there was any more friction than already exists.

(15) By Richard Hipp (drh) on 2021-01-28 03:13:34 in reply to 14.0 [link] [source]

consensus seems to be that the many reports would go unreported if there was any more friction

We have history to demonstrate this. It works.

(16) By Gary (1codedebugger) on 2021-01-28 06:05:22 in reply to 15 [link] [source]

I apologize and should have bit my tongue. I wasn't really questioning the use of anonymous accounts and never thought about it before reading the post inquiring about the identity of moderators. I was only adding friction myself because I'm tired of watching public opinion mess up good things. I'll try to keep my mouth shut and bridle my tongue.

(17) By Ryan Smith (cuz) on 2021-01-28 11:48:30 in reply to 16 [link] [source]

No need to grovel in excuse, there's been many opinions on both sides of that debate on this forum in the past - it's a reasonable question.

It simply comes down to the fact that, as Richard pointed out for this forum, public anonymous participation have not been detrimental in any real way, whereas disallowing it has.

I am not a moderator so I cannot say with any authority what amount of crazy anonymous posts do show up and get moderated out, but I've not seen any debate on that so am expecting the incidence to be fairly low.

I myself (and others) have at the start advocated for non-anonymous posting, my main reasoning being that it is such a convenience to be able to discern to whom you are replying, not waste time repeating yourself, etc, but that advantage is outweighed heavily by the utility of not having any sign-up hindrance when getting bug reports in - la raison d'ĂȘtre.

(18) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-28 12:11:31 in reply to 17 [source]

I am not a moderator so I cannot say with any authority what amount of crazy anonymous posts do show up and get moderated out, but I've not seen any debate on that so am expecting the incidence to be fairly low.

"Fairly low" is an overstatement, actually. Astoundingly low is closer to the truth, and i don't believe that anonymous is in the majority there (or not a strong majority). Outright spam attempts, while also surprisingly rare, are almost invariably from named accounts (which get promptly deleted). Same on the Fossil forum, except that that one gets more spam attempts than this forum, for whatever reason (mostly in Vietnamese, strangely enough). In both forums they simply don't survive manual moderation (with one exceedingly sneaky exception which very briefly made it through). In that regard the forum software, initially prompted by the ever-increasing spam problems on the mailing lists, has been an unqualified success.

(19) By Cecil (CecilWesterhof) on 2021-01-28 13:16:56 in reply to 18 [link] [source]

Yes, I find the forum better as the mailing list.

(12) By Stephan Beal (stephan) on 2021-01-27 23:51:09 in reply to 8 [link] [source]

but is there not some humor and irony in the fact ...

Indeed.

Are there any anonymous moderators?

Only in the sense that whether a person is a moderator is not generally public knowledge. The "anonymous" account is a singleton and has no moderation privileges unless the forum operator assigns it to them (in which case all anonymous users could moderate (and chaos ensues)).

Are not accounts with names still anonymous, unless one provides their real full name?

Essentially, yes, but readers know that User X is always User X, whereas "anonymous" can be any number of people at a time, and many people tend to prefer to know they're interacting with the same person each time they see a given name. We often see threads of anonymous users "talking to themselves," answering their own questions, or so it would appear if the name were anything other than "anonymous".