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g2boojum |
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GLEP: 38 |
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Title: Status of forum moderators in the Gentoo project |
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Version: $Revision: $ |
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Last-Modified: $Date: $ |
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Author: Christian Hartmann <christian.hartmann at email.de>, |
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Wernfried Haas <w.haas at xover.htu.tuwien.ac.at>. |
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Status: Draft |
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Type: Informational |
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Content-Type: text/x-rst |
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Created: 06-May-2005 |
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Post-History: 17-Jun-2005 |
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Abstract |
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======== |
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Global moderators and site admins should also go through the mentoring process |
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and become official Gentoo staff. |
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Motivation |
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========== |
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At the time of writing the forums are apart from the recruiting process and |
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people helping out there are not made an official part of Gentoo. This GLEP |
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aims on creating and establishing a recruitment and mentoring process for |
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moderators and site admins of forums.gentoo.org. By doing this we hopefully |
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achieve a (even) better moderation quality and stop the complaints about |
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moderators not being staff. Moderators and site admins do not need cvs |
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access. |
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Moderators and site admins are doing a hard job for the community as well as all |
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the other projects do but they get no voice in the gentoo internals. Recent events |
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such as the election of trustees or the new metastructure poll are effectively |
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affecting the forums, so the wish to be part of the decision as an equal member |
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is present among the moderators. |
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Moderators are often a contact person between users and developers, so we |
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should try to improve the communication between these two groups of people. As |
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moderators are pretty much exposed to the public (forums users, but also used |
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as contact person for requests that should go to the PR department or the |
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trustees) they need to have some knowledge about Gentoo's internal structure |
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as well as contact to the other developers. |
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The current training process for new moderators works pretty well even though |
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there are no official guidelines how to do it. As part of this proposal a more |
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detailed procedure for the training process will be established to make it |
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more reproducable. It also gives us the possibility to document the things |
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happening already today in the current training process. |
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The status of the Gentoo Forums has been undefined for quite some time. Since |
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it is using the gentoo.org domain it should be considered an official project. |
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People working on an official project should be developers or staff following Gentoo's |
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general policy. At the moment the persons with direct access to the database |
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are developers. Being moderator could be considered an improved forums rank |
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that does not have impact on Gentoo's infrastructure, but since moderators and |
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administrators are able to delete, move and edit posts on the forum willingly, |
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their level of access should be considered developer like. Many users may not |
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be aware of the difference between moderators and developers, so the actions of a |
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moderator may represent Gentoo Linux to them anyway. |
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Specification |
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============= |
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To obtain a certain kind of quality assurance and to (create and) ensure that |
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upcoming moderators know about the forums guidelines a document and processes |
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will have to be created and established that the recruits need to follow. |
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This document (called `Moderators handbook/FAQ`_) will include the moderation guidelines |
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as they are currently available in the moderators forum plus a FAQ that was created as |
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a possible candidate for a forums-quiz. The guidelines and the FAQ should help the |
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moderator to get some general information about how to moderate the forums. |
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Suggested procedure for becoming global moderator: |
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Existing moderators can suggest a user to become a moderator. The ability of the new |
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moderator to deal with people in a kind way and to detect misplaced posts, etc usually |
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also has been reviewed by the other moderators already since they can read his |
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previous posts and suggestions in the forums feedback threads. |
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If he accepts, he will become moderator on the forums. A bug will be filed on b.g.o |
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containing information about the new moderator. Afterwards he must answer the staff |
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quiz that will be revisited by devrel. The quiz then will be send to recruiters@g.o for |
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revision. |
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The first month is supposed to be a test period, if the moderator |
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does not do anything in that time or messes up in another way, he will be |
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restored to his old user status. The mentor(s) and everyone of the forums team |
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are encouraged to help the new moderator if he is unsure how to deal with a |
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situation. |
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Rationale |
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========= |
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The process of aquiring new developers seems to work for the rest of Gentoo |
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Linux quite well. A mentoring system has been chosen since new moderators were |
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mentored unofficially by the other moderators anyway. This means more or less |
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writing down things that have been done already. |
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It was discussed to add a forums-specific quiz to the process of aquiring new |
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moderators. |
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Devrel's standing on that is that it is up to the moderators how a new moderator is |
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chosen. Since the old process worked fine so far and some people among the moderators |
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didn't exactly like the idea of a quiz, we chose not to make one. A document containing the |
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questions collected for the quiz in form of a FAQ together with the moderation |
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guidelines seems to be a more feasible approach. The new moderators are supposed to |
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read the FAQ as well as they had to take a quiz, so they will learn the information |
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given in this document. |
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Backwards Compatibility |
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======================= |
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Most moderators are currently not staff members. Becoming a staff member is not mandatory |
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for existing moderators. If they want to become a staff member they need to take the |
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staff quiz. If they don't they just stay in their position as moderator without |
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becoming a staff member. |
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Moderators who are currently inactive (Bodhisattva status) should be |
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considered as old moderators in case they come back. New moderators should |
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have to go through the mentoring process in any case as stated above. |
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Moderators in national forums: In our internal discussion it turned out that not |
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all moderators in the national forums are able to speak english well, which |
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would be a requirement to become a staff member. We decided that it would |
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counter productive to make it mandatory for them. Becoming a staff member is |
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optional for these moderators. |
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As a side effect of the discussion about the glep among the moderators |
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as well as in discussions with other developers and devrel, it turned |
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out that the forums have never been assigned to a toplevel project in the |
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general organization of the Gentoo project. Forums don't really seem to fit |
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into one of the current categories as they are related to the infrastructure |
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and the documentation project. We suggest putting it in the other category |
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or making a separate one for the forums. |
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Reference Implementation |
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======================== |
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- `Moderators handbook/FAQ`_ |
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- `Becoming a developer`_ |
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- `Staff quiz`_ |
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- `Thread on gentoo-dev`_ |
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.. _Moderators handbook/FAQ: http://curtis119.no-ip.org/forum-guide.xml |
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.. _Becoming a developer: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1&chap=2 |
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.. _Staff quiz: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/quiz/staff-quiz.txt |
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.. _Thread on gentoo-dev: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/28985 |
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Copyright |
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========= |
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This document has been placed in the public domain. |
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