Do we really need mods?
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 1:43 am
Serious question. Do we need mods? What role do they actually serve? What role should they serve? How did we get to the point where the Internet ceased to be about free and open expression, and became instead a collection of self-contained intellectual ghettos governed by rules of conduct arbitrarily defined by unelected tribunals of power-drunk geeks? And most important of all, how do we fix the problem?
This is not a simple, harmless issue. It is not even an issue confined to this forum, although, yes, certain recent reactionary "rollbacks" do make it a problem of topical interest to us proud, patriotic UESPers. It's far bigger than that. It cuts right to the heart of what makes the Internet "the Internet"- it undermines the founding principles upon which the Internet was based, and, left unexamined and unchecked, will destroy everything that made our sacred medium the most powerful force for progress and good that the world has ever known.
What do I mean by this? Well, first of all, we have to understand what those principles are. The Internet is, or at least was, based upon the hacker ethic, a creed of radical individualism and freedom of thought espoused by the brilliant post-hippie nerds who labored to build the modern Internet's framework three decades ago. It stated that information should be free, discussions should be open, power should be decentralized, and learning should never be forbidden. Basically, it's a modernist twist on the old liberal doctrine of the "marketplace of ideas", the belief that society can only and will only advance through freedom of thought, freedom of learning, and freedom of expression; that any attempts to control our access to or ability to disseminate information is both unjust and damaging to society. And these guys were right. The Internet has changed the world, for the better, in deeper ways than any other invention since fire and agriculture. In a few short years, it's gone from an academic luxury and experimental DARPA project to a daily part of each and every one of our lives, replacing, improving, or becoming indispensably linked to nearly every industry built since the advent of the printing press. The reason? Openness.
________________________________________________________________________________
Now, mods. We all know what mods are, right? Or do we? What are mods, really? In brief, moderating staff are a centralized power authority, empowered by a webmaster, claiming the authority to censor (or "moderate") content within a forum, imageboard, or other social media outlet.
Was this always the case? No. In fact, in the early days of the net, mods were completely unheard of! Only certain narrow, corporate-controlled internet islands (such as AOL's notoriously lame "Chat services") saw the need or desire to employ their own team of referees. Most "forums" were not forums at all, but informal newsgroups and IRC channels; even when modern "messageboard" formats began to appear, with tighter regulations and tracking of the userbase (such as through the imposition of mandatory usernames and logins), the bureaucratic staff tended to focus on technical problems and website maintenance, leaving the governing of the actual community where it belongs: in the hands of the community. With the rise of spam, that began to change. Forums began to get flooded with bogus messages, unsolicited advertisements, and misleading links. In fact, it got so bad that a traditional "hands-off" forum could expect to see 90-95% of it's content comprise nothing but automated messages from spambots. Needless to say, this tended to kill any messageboard-based communities so afflicted.
So, a deal with the devil was made. The webmaster's "staff" would be expanded. In addition to increasing controls placed upon membership ("email confirmation", captchas etc), the "junior management" would be expanded and tasked with policing and removing "unwanted" material. They would be, in essence, de facto censors, a team of e-police whose badge meant nothing outside of the webmaster's digital walls, charged with ensuring that the streets were kept clean of litter. And that was OK... right? Little bit of order, to save a lot of headache?
Unfortunately, as anyone who understands human nature and the dynamics of power could tell you, this "reasonable" accommodation didn't last long. Before too long, webmasters, or more properly, the moderating community itself, began to look for new avenues to explore. Internet users "accepted" moderators to keep their communities clean, right? So why not clean up some of the more flagrant "abuse"? We're all familiar with "flaming", right? Yelling, name-calling, and generally raging on the 'net? Why shouldn't mods do something about that, too?
Well, there's about a billion reasons why they shouldn't, but to their credit, this shift towards active hands-on paternalism took it's time. At first, most mods refrained from interfering with community issues UNLESS users specifically requested moderation. Not everyone is mature and sensible; like in the real world, there are some people who think the world revolves around them, and like to get "offended" when things don't go their way. These are exactly the same sort of people who write angry letters to congressmen demanding that video games be banned because Skyrim has some "naughty bits". When online and faced with flaming, these folks don't know how to handle themselves properly... so they dash to the nearest perceived authority figure in hopes they'll make it right. In other words, mods became playground monitors, charged with listening to tattletales. Offended? Cry about it, and maybe, just maybe, the Hand of Mod will intervene and make all your troubles go away. At first, again to their credit, most mods resisted this sort of flagrant emotional blackmail. Just tell em: "nobody likes a tattletale" and "if you don't like what the other kids are saying, go play with someone else". But once the floodgates were open, the tide could not be stemmed; before too long, it became de rigueur for this new centralized power structure to cave in to the whinging squawks of the emotionally fragile and socially inept.
Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. It was now accepted practice for mods to violate the rights of users based on the complaints of the community, or even a tiny minority faction therein. But why wait for complaints? Why wait for the community to decide what is and is not proper? Why can't the mods make judgement calls for themselves? Why indeed?
And with that thought, the last thread of sanity is severed. Moderating is no longer about keeping the servers up and running. It is no longer about keeping the community clean and functional. It is not even about censoring discussions based on communal morality defined by the community itself. Now, it is about censoring discussions based on morality imposed upon the community by the mod and the mod alone. What was once a free and open society, full of life and promise, has become, in a quite literal sense, an exercise in fascism. Power is no longer decentralized, it is central, absolute, and held by a poorly-trained group of amateurs not even theoretically empowered by the mandate of the people. Discussions are no longer open, they are tenuous at best and subject to approval by The Man. Communal standards are no longer organic and natural, they are artificial and imposed upon the rest of us by moderators and the very worst users. Information can be forbidden on the rather shaky grounds that it "may offend someone"- and, as anyone can tell you, once this premise is accepted, nothing is free.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Which leads me to the problem we are now faced with, the problem which we can, and must, address, for how we answer will determine the future of us all: what is to be done?
The answer is, really, up to you guys. I want to hear your opinions. I won't lie: I have no idea what must be done. o I know you'd all love me to channel my inner Lenin and call for a bloody Revolution to cast down our oppressors, but to be honest, I rather like some of the mods here. Take Avron, for example: I think we'd all be sad to see her go to the block. She's a wonderful human being with a good heart and a genuine interest in helping people. Some of the time. Mods aren't monsters, they're simply average geeks who've lost their way. o I'm tempted to call for a split, for a voluntary mass renunciation of the social ties corrupted by aggressive moderating, and a migration to a "new forum", one based on free, egalitarian principles (in much the same way as political dissidents might renounce corrupt systems and reorganize themselves into anarchist or even communist communes). However, I have no illusions about the prospects of such a move; it's been tried before, and the sad fact is, most people aren't cut out to embark on such an ambitious social project. There's more Caesars than Sullas in this world, and I'm not certain even I would have the moral strength to resist the urge to turn such a community into UESP 2.0, not now that the Internet has become so accustomed to totalitarian wickedness. o Nor can I see that eliminating mods altogether would be a good idea; it'd save the spirit and promise of the Internet, no doubt, but we'd also be left defenseless against the predations of spambots. Death by spam may be preferable to death by fascism, but it's still death. Mods, like the state, are perhaps a necessary evil... but how much of this evil do we allow to remain in our midst?
Possible ideas; again, I make no claim as to which would be best, nor am I specifically condoning or calling for any behavior found below. This is simply an academic exercise, asking "what if" and helping us to examine the problem from many different angles.
This is not a simple, harmless issue. It is not even an issue confined to this forum, although, yes, certain recent reactionary "rollbacks" do make it a problem of topical interest to us proud, patriotic UESPers. It's far bigger than that. It cuts right to the heart of what makes the Internet "the Internet"- it undermines the founding principles upon which the Internet was based, and, left unexamined and unchecked, will destroy everything that made our sacred medium the most powerful force for progress and good that the world has ever known.
What do I mean by this? Well, first of all, we have to understand what those principles are. The Internet is, or at least was, based upon the hacker ethic, a creed of radical individualism and freedom of thought espoused by the brilliant post-hippie nerds who labored to build the modern Internet's framework three decades ago. It stated that information should be free, discussions should be open, power should be decentralized, and learning should never be forbidden. Basically, it's a modernist twist on the old liberal doctrine of the "marketplace of ideas", the belief that society can only and will only advance through freedom of thought, freedom of learning, and freedom of expression; that any attempts to control our access to or ability to disseminate information is both unjust and damaging to society. And these guys were right. The Internet has changed the world, for the better, in deeper ways than any other invention since fire and agriculture. In a few short years, it's gone from an academic luxury and experimental DARPA project to a daily part of each and every one of our lives, replacing, improving, or becoming indispensably linked to nearly every industry built since the advent of the printing press. The reason? Openness.
________________________________________________________________________________
Now, mods. We all know what mods are, right? Or do we? What are mods, really? In brief, moderating staff are a centralized power authority, empowered by a webmaster, claiming the authority to censor (or "moderate") content within a forum, imageboard, or other social media outlet.
Was this always the case? No. In fact, in the early days of the net, mods were completely unheard of! Only certain narrow, corporate-controlled internet islands (such as AOL's notoriously lame "Chat services") saw the need or desire to employ their own team of referees. Most "forums" were not forums at all, but informal newsgroups and IRC channels; even when modern "messageboard" formats began to appear, with tighter regulations and tracking of the userbase (such as through the imposition of mandatory usernames and logins), the bureaucratic staff tended to focus on technical problems and website maintenance, leaving the governing of the actual community where it belongs: in the hands of the community. With the rise of spam, that began to change. Forums began to get flooded with bogus messages, unsolicited advertisements, and misleading links. In fact, it got so bad that a traditional "hands-off" forum could expect to see 90-95% of it's content comprise nothing but automated messages from spambots. Needless to say, this tended to kill any messageboard-based communities so afflicted.
So, a deal with the devil was made. The webmaster's "staff" would be expanded. In addition to increasing controls placed upon membership ("email confirmation", captchas etc), the "junior management" would be expanded and tasked with policing and removing "unwanted" material. They would be, in essence, de facto censors, a team of e-police whose badge meant nothing outside of the webmaster's digital walls, charged with ensuring that the streets were kept clean of litter. And that was OK... right? Little bit of order, to save a lot of headache?
Unfortunately, as anyone who understands human nature and the dynamics of power could tell you, this "reasonable" accommodation didn't last long. Before too long, webmasters, or more properly, the moderating community itself, began to look for new avenues to explore. Internet users "accepted" moderators to keep their communities clean, right? So why not clean up some of the more flagrant "abuse"? We're all familiar with "flaming", right? Yelling, name-calling, and generally raging on the 'net? Why shouldn't mods do something about that, too?
Well, there's about a billion reasons why they shouldn't, but to their credit, this shift towards active hands-on paternalism took it's time. At first, most mods refrained from interfering with community issues UNLESS users specifically requested moderation. Not everyone is mature and sensible; like in the real world, there are some people who think the world revolves around them, and like to get "offended" when things don't go their way. These are exactly the same sort of people who write angry letters to congressmen demanding that video games be banned because Skyrim has some "naughty bits". When online and faced with flaming, these folks don't know how to handle themselves properly... so they dash to the nearest perceived authority figure in hopes they'll make it right. In other words, mods became playground monitors, charged with listening to tattletales. Offended? Cry about it, and maybe, just maybe, the Hand of Mod will intervene and make all your troubles go away. At first, again to their credit, most mods resisted this sort of flagrant emotional blackmail. Just tell em: "nobody likes a tattletale" and "if you don't like what the other kids are saying, go play with someone else". But once the floodgates were open, the tide could not be stemmed; before too long, it became de rigueur for this new centralized power structure to cave in to the whinging squawks of the emotionally fragile and socially inept.
Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. It was now accepted practice for mods to violate the rights of users based on the complaints of the community, or even a tiny minority faction therein. But why wait for complaints? Why wait for the community to decide what is and is not proper? Why can't the mods make judgement calls for themselves? Why indeed?
And with that thought, the last thread of sanity is severed. Moderating is no longer about keeping the servers up and running. It is no longer about keeping the community clean and functional. It is not even about censoring discussions based on communal morality defined by the community itself. Now, it is about censoring discussions based on morality imposed upon the community by the mod and the mod alone. What was once a free and open society, full of life and promise, has become, in a quite literal sense, an exercise in fascism. Power is no longer decentralized, it is central, absolute, and held by a poorly-trained group of amateurs not even theoretically empowered by the mandate of the people. Discussions are no longer open, they are tenuous at best and subject to approval by The Man. Communal standards are no longer organic and natural, they are artificial and imposed upon the rest of us by moderators and the very worst users. Information can be forbidden on the rather shaky grounds that it "may offend someone"- and, as anyone can tell you, once this premise is accepted, nothing is free.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Which leads me to the problem we are now faced with, the problem which we can, and must, address, for how we answer will determine the future of us all: what is to be done?
The answer is, really, up to you guys. I want to hear your opinions. I won't lie: I have no idea what must be done. o I know you'd all love me to channel my inner Lenin and call for a bloody Revolution to cast down our oppressors, but to be honest, I rather like some of the mods here. Take Avron, for example: I think we'd all be sad to see her go to the block. She's a wonderful human being with a good heart and a genuine interest in helping people. Some of the time. Mods aren't monsters, they're simply average geeks who've lost their way. o I'm tempted to call for a split, for a voluntary mass renunciation of the social ties corrupted by aggressive moderating, and a migration to a "new forum", one based on free, egalitarian principles (in much the same way as political dissidents might renounce corrupt systems and reorganize themselves into anarchist or even communist communes). However, I have no illusions about the prospects of such a move; it's been tried before, and the sad fact is, most people aren't cut out to embark on such an ambitious social project. There's more Caesars than Sullas in this world, and I'm not certain even I would have the moral strength to resist the urge to turn such a community into UESP 2.0, not now that the Internet has become so accustomed to totalitarian wickedness. o Nor can I see that eliminating mods altogether would be a good idea; it'd save the spirit and promise of the Internet, no doubt, but we'd also be left defenseless against the predations of spambots. Death by spam may be preferable to death by fascism, but it's still death. Mods, like the state, are perhaps a necessary evil... but how much of this evil do we allow to remain in our midst?
Possible ideas; again, I make no claim as to which would be best, nor am I specifically condoning or calling for any behavior found below. This is simply an academic exercise, asking "what if" and helping us to examine the problem from many different angles.
Spoiler:
