DDO Forum - meta-moderation.

[Meetch1972]

It's occurred to me from seeing references to people being given +ve and -ve reputation for arguable reasons, that perhaps there could be a meta-moderation process on the forums. Slashdot uses it to great effect in order to ratify moderation decisions. It would work on the forums something like this:
* A post gets repped, either way. The system keeps track of who gave rep and how many points that amounted to.
* The rep action gets added to a meta-moderation queue. A meta-moderation task is distributed to a handful (maybe 3) others. The forum logic then asks a user to indicate a post was repped up or down, taking them to see that page of the thread via a link, and basically asks whether that decision was fair enough or not.
* Majority rules, and whoever gave the rep has their power diminished if they were just being nasty or showing favoritism.
* The meta-mod operation would be anonymous, but of course you'd never be asked to meta-mod your own post.
* If out of 3 meta-mod operations there is one differing opinion, the system might queue up another operation to another user, and if it then became 2 agree 2 disagree then a final decision would be made from yet another operation..
* Those who meta-moderate a post will have some stats tracked to do with how in-line with consensus they are, and perhaps even given a little boost if they generally prove to be helpful in the process.

It could be more complex, but then we only have +/- here, not -1 for trolling, -1 for being rude or +1 for insight etc. The trick would be getting people to do it because a) the system asked, b) is good and c) it takes little effort on the part of the chosen meta-moderator.

This sort of thing just might reduce what might otherwise be considered pettiness in handing out rep adjustments.

*ducks for cover*

[Dysmetria]

Better yet just get rid of the rep system completely.

End the popularity contest of the same people +1ing each other for every post they make and leave the ability to report threads for rule violations.

[Meetch1972]

Better yet just get rid of the rep system completely.

End the popularity contest of the same people +1ing each other for every post they make and leave the ability to report threads for rule violations.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the principle. It would be nice if we could filter individual posts out based on the rep they've received, moderated by how fair the rep adjustments were. If unreasonable friend-boosting (or taking down those who try rational arguments to disagree with a point) was muffled, more of the worthwhile stuff might stand out more, so I'd really like to see something in place to make reputation more relevant and less to do with the clique.

I'm allowed to dream a bit, aren't I?