Share your experiences regarding LETs moderation

Pilzbaum

How is/was you experience with LETs moderators?
What bugs you, what makes you happy?

To start, I dislike the temper in general currently. Also, handling of negative posts/messages is not as good as it was or is supposed to be.

Many thanks and make LET great again

cybertech

is it important? just come for the deals.

wait where are the deals?

serv_ee

It's getting a tad stupid lately to be honest. Especially when negative feedback is taken as an personal attack.

Pilzbaum

@cybertech said:
is it important?

No! Yes.... Who am I to judge? It makes a clearer picture I presume tho

wait where are the deals?

debian thx

aakashmishra007

@Pilzbaum said: How is/was you experience with LETs moderators?

What bugs you, what makes you happy?

Haven't had a personal experience with them yet, but I think it's all good if you play it good.

HostSlick

Exzellent. They are good people who do a hard job for the community.

Shakib

Do we care?

Some of the moderators are awesome.

BingoBongo

Some mods are excellent like FAT, jord, DP etc..

Others are............. Don't know....

james50a

No real complaints except for maybe there not being enough to smakedown new wesil accounts instantly. Can't really complain about what I think is still an unpaid position?

jbiloh

@serv_ee said:
It's getting a tad stupid lately to be honest. Especially when negative feedback is taken as an personal attack.

Do any recent examples come to mind?

serv_ee

@jbiloh said:

@serv_ee said:
It's getting a tad stupid lately to be honest. Especially when negative feedback is taken as an personal attack.

Do any recent examples come to mind?

You should really check the ssh key thread. I have nothing against the mod, he seems like a good guy but his temper is 0-100 in less than a second.

Pilzbaum

@serv_ee said:
You should really check the ssh key thread. I have nothing against the mod, he seems like a good guy but his temper is 0-100 in less than a second.

That's one reason why I created this thread/poll

https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/181540/ssh-key-authentication-how-to-create-ssh-key-pairs#latest

Also, not the first time for @Arkas as well actually

emg

Most of this post was written for the SSH keygen thread, but I think it fits better here.

One of the many things I have learned about LowEndTalk is that there is a large population of people who follow along but don't post. Most of them look at the offers, which garner thousands of views. Discussions like this one garner hundreds of views. You can see for yourself.

LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

Newbies come here who want to learn. Setting up and using VPSs, dedicated servers, and using hosting services is not easy. Frankly, LowEndTalk does not make it easy for newbies to find the help that they need. Getting help can be a brutalizing experience. Members give deliberately misleading and erroneous responses that must be filtered out. It can be challenging to find a straightforward answer or just get along.

Sharing is not easy either. Trolls with duplicate accounts will suck you in by starting newbie-type threads. When you try to help someone, others jump in with distracting and sometimes dangerous answers like, " 'rm -rf' will fix it."

I am here because LowEndTalk is the best place I have found to get help with VPSs and to share what I learn with others. I keep searching for something better than LowEndTalk, but have not found it yet. LowEndSpirit? WebHostingTalk? Not really the right places for me either. If I suddenly disappear from LowEndTalk, you will know that I am either very sick, dead, or found a better community for me to learn and share about VPSs.

It can't be easy for Jon, the administrators, and the moderators. Jon has to make the moderator job fun and rewarding, and some of that comes from giving a level of independence and autonomy to the moderators. The problem comes from a lack of well-defined policies that provide guidance on how to do the moderator job. As others have pointed out, enforcement is inconsistent because nobody is sure of the rules and who they apply to. I have seen plenty of moderator enforcement that appeared to be heavy handed. I have seen way more posts that should have been moderator-enforced, but the moderators did not notice or bother.

If I were to suggest one thing for moderators to change here at LowEndTalk, I would eliminate the personal attacks. Just stop them. Delete posts that attack the person. Stop the "You're an idiot!" comments, but allow "That's an idiotic idea that will never work!". If nothing works, ban the bullies who won't stop their aggressive and intimidating attacks on others.

jugganuts

@BingoBongo said:
Some mods are excellent like FAT, jord, DP etc..

Others are............. Don't know....

I just wanted to make a small comment since I'm pretty much the one that started the SSH thread drama. I do think that some of the moderators do a good job and I appreciate those Moderators. Like fatty boi losing countless hours of sleep to do the mega threads and flash sale threads. Or DP remaining the voice of reason during pointless debate. Thanks you.

jbiloh

@emg said:
Most of this post was written for the SSH keygen thread, but I think it fits better here.

One of the many things I have learned about LowEndTalk is that there is a large population of people who follow along but don't post. Most of them look at the offers, which garner thousands of views. Discussions like this one garner hundreds of views. You can see for yourself.

LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

Newbies come here who want to learn. Setting up and using VPSs, dedicated servers, and using hosting services is not easy. Frankly, LowEndTalk does not make it easy for newbies to find the help that they need. Getting help can be a brutalizing experience. Members give deliberately misleading and erroneous responses that must be filtered out. It can be challenging to find a straightforward answer or just get along.

Sharing is not easy either. Trolls with duplicate accounts will suck you in by starting newbie-type threads. When you try to help someone, others jump in with distracting and sometimes dangerous answers like, " 'rm -rf' will fix it."

I am here because LowEndTalk is the best place I have found to get help with VPSs and to share what I learn with others. I keep searching for something better than LowEndTalk, but have not found it yet. LowEndSpirit? WebHostingTalk? Not really the right places for me either. If I suddenly disappear from LowEndTalk, you will know that I am either very sick, dead, or found a better community for me to learn and share about VPSs.

It can't be easy for Jon, the administrators, and the moderators. Jon has to make the moderator job fun and rewarding, and some of that comes from giving a level of independence and autonomy to the moderators. The problem comes from a lack of well-defined policies that provide guidance on how to do the moderator job. As others have pointed out, enforcement is inconsistent because nobody is sure of the rules and who they apply to. I have seen plenty of moderator enforcement that appeared to be heavy handed. I have seen way more posts that should have been moderator-enforced, but the moderators did not notice or bother.

If I were to suggest one thing for moderators to change here at LowEndTalk, I would eliminate the personal attacks. Just stop them. Delete posts that attack the person. Stop the "You're an idiot!" comments, but allow "That's an idiotic idea that will never work!". If nothing works, ban the bullies who won't stop their aggressive and intimidating attacks on others.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Well written and intelligent.

TimboJones

@emg said:
LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

It was soooo much worse when I first joined. It was 98% using "PMS" and calling bad male behaviour posters as "she". It was an incel hangout.

There was only two confirmed females on LET for years.

inland

@TimboJones said:

@emg said:
LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

It was soooo much worse when I first joined. It was 98% using "PMS" and calling bad male behaviour posters as "she". It was an incel hangout.

There was only two confirmed females on LET for years.

So... you're just gonna call every male discussing tech on a tech forum an "incel" now? Are you okay with that?

rcy026

@inland said:

@TimboJones said:

@emg said:
LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

It was soooo much worse when I first joined. It was 98% using "PMS" and calling bad male behaviour posters as "she". It was an incel hangout.

There was only two confirmed females on LET for years.

So... you're just gonna call every male discussing tech on a tech forum an "incel" now? Are you okay with that?

Seriously? That is so not what he was saying!
If the males were in fact discussing tech, I promise you that nobody would have a problem with it. But the reality is that the amount of actually tech related posts on LET is alarmingly low. Even in tech related threads most of the posts are namecalling, pointless memes, a few different sects, or internal jokes that only a very small percentage of users find funny and that you have had to be around for years to even get.

There are occasional nuggets of wisdom to be found here, but they are few and far between, and honestly the signal-to-noise ratio is closing in on not being worth it anymore.

jbiloh

55.10% of the users who voted (that includes me), define our moderation as Average, Good or Excellent.

44.90% of the users who voted define our moderation as Poor or Very Poor.

From my POV you can never please everyone, so you'll always have 20-30% of folks disagree with you no matter what.

That said, it looks like we need to do a little better because 55.10% just isn't good enough.

Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions and we'll keep this poll open and I'll keep checking back.

dahartigan

Do something about @Not_Oles gaslighting people who disagree with him, for a start.

devp

@dahartigan said:
Do something about @Not_Oles gaslighting people who disagree with him, for a start.

Thats a long story having all data and proofs available here at LET in the form of hundreds of comments on various threads throughout the current year.

devp

@jbiloh said:
55.10% of the users who voted (that includes me), define our moderation as Average, Good or Excellent.

44.90% of the users who voted define our moderation as Poor or Very Poor.

From my POV you can never please everyone, so you'll always have 20-30% of folks disagree with you no matter what.

That said, it looks like we need to do a little better because 55.10% just isn't good enough.

Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions and we'll keep this poll open and I'll keep checking back.

@jbiloh have turned LET casual discussions into profitable business.
Definitely @jbiloh can do better improvements in governance.

jsg

@jbiloh said:
55.10% of the users who voted (that includes me), define our moderation as Average, Good or Excellent.

44.90% of the users who voted define our moderation as Poor or Very Poor.

From my POV you can never please everyone, so you'll always have 20-30% of folks disagree with you no matter what.

Do you really need to bend the numbers by including "average" in the positive results? The truth is that 30,5% are grading the moderation on LET positive while 42,37% are grading it negative (and 27,12 find it neither positive nor negative).

That said, it looks like we need to do a little better because 55.10% just isn't good enough.

Thanks to everyone who shared their opinions and we'll keep this poll open and I'll keep checking back.

Nope, not "50.1%". 30.5% just isn't good enough.

That said, the reasons for both positive and negative gradings might be quite diverse. Plus, I suspect, there is a "quiet but large majority" who don't dare to complain or to utter constructive criticism or have given up anyway (not because of you, jbiloh, but because of the toxicity here).

TimboJones

@inland said:

@TimboJones said:

@emg said:
LowEndTalk is not a welcoming place for many who would benefit from its members' knowledge and experience. The culture here is unlike any workplace or internet forum I have ever known, and not in a good way. (I am not that naive. There are many worse places and communities on the internet.) I am surprised that there are any women members on LowEndTalk, due to the male-dominant culture here.

It was soooo much worse when I first joined. It was 98% using "PMS" and calling bad male behaviour posters as "she". It was an incel hangout.

There was only two confirmed females on LET for years.

So... you're just gonna call every male discussing tech on a tech forum an "incel" now? Are you okay with that?

Was that supposed to be an example of me calling "every" male an incel or something? (Have a look at my post count) If your argument is that I'm wrong, posting multiple instances isn't helping your point, you'd have to post examples where they weren't incels.

No, but I will question your reading comprehension when my post was to say it was so much worse, in that I used to call WAY more people incels here a few years ago than now.

iNanja

I had to google what incel meant, but I don't think Incel people exist in this day & age. It's so easy to accomplish no longer being an Incel by downloading the correct app. Perhaps I viewed the wrong definition? Idk, but Incel is a easy fix.

Edit: Sorry, I guess the definition I find on google is rather different than what it actually is. I just read an article about how Incel people forcefully have intercourse with ladies every 30 minutes. Calling people Incel is basically saying they forcefully do that to opposite sex. I don't think that is very nice.

jbiloh

@jsg said: Nope, not "50.1%". 30.5% just isn't good enough.

That said, the reasons for both positive and negative gradings might be quite diverse. Plus, I suspect, there is a "quiet but large majority" who don't dare to complain or to utter constructive criticism or have given up anyway (not because of you, jbiloh, but because of the toxicity here).

My logic was that if you can achieve a level of "not good or bad" on an Internet forum (regarding satisfaction with anything) then that is a success. Which is why I put Average, Good and Excellent in the "acceptable" category of 50.1%.

Either way, seems we have room for improvement.

Each and every moderator currently on the team has sincerely good intentions and desire to help contribute to our community in a purely positive fashion.

The feedback is valuable and noticed. There are a few rough areas we can clean up and do better with.

fynix

I don't know what is good or what is bad so I voted average.

Not_Oles

@emg said: If I were to suggest one thing for moderators to change here at LowEndTalk, I would eliminate the personal attacks. Just stop them. Delete posts that attack the person. Stop the "You're an idiot!" comments, but allow "That's an idiotic idea that will never work!". If nothing works, ban the bullies who won't stop their aggressive and intimidating attacks on others.

Well said! Thank you @emg!

The personal attacks are what the moderators should focus on first.

@jsg said: That said, the reasons for both positive and negative gradings might be quite diverse. Plus, I suspect, there is a "quiet but large majority" who don't dare to complain or to utter constructive criticism or have given up anyway (not because of you, jbiloh, but because of the toxicity here).

Well said! Thank you @jsg!

My guess is that the toxicity and negativity here causes some members who do possess the courage to complain or to utter constructive criticism to leave quietly because they deem it not worth the effort required to improve our atmosphere.

Besides members who leave quietly, I imagine there might be an even larger group who visit briefly and quietly but do not join.

Are we bleeding good members and repelling good prospects?

Not_Oles

I see the Low End as changing. The economic situation is making it harder to be a Low End Provider. But LET and LEB have a bright future if they (1) remove negativity and toxicity so as to appeal to a wider audience, (2) add educational resources for people new to the Low End (thanks @Arkas), and (3) help new people utilize the now omnipresent and growing free cloud accounts from the big providers.

Forward!

Not_Oles

Just saw this! Hooray for @jsg!

@jsg said:
Simple rule (and in the long run painful for @jbiloh and LET): If you mock, molest, or attack those who put work into the community and create (more or less) valuable content, you'll be left with those who only consume and turn LET into a toxic sh_thole.

Source: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3486747/#Comment_3486747

neverain

@Not_Oles said:
I see the Low End as changing. The economic situation is making it harder to be a Low End Provider. But LET and LEB have a bright future if they (1) remove negativity and toxicity so as to appeal to a wider audience, (2) add educational resources for people new to the Low End (thanks @Arkas), and (3) help new people utilize the now omnipresent and growing free cloud accounts from the big providers.

Forward!

arkas isnt posting educational content tho? dudes spamming YouTube videos