This forum has grown into a community that helps each other. As any community grows the need for moderation grows with it. This is evident with the recent growth in attacks on other users for stating their opinions.
Some posts people are expressing frustration, this is completely fine, though the responses to their posts are starting flame wars. This is not conducive to the community, or for newer users that are looking for help. These new users especially will look around see these threads and be deterred from asking for help out of fear they will receive a rude answer.
I am fully willing to help with this, and I volunteer to help moderate.
This forum has grown into a community that helps each other. As any community grows the need for moderation grows with it. This is evident with the recent growth in attacks on other users for stating their opinions.
Some posts people are expressing frustration, this is completely fine, though the responses to their posts are starting flame wars. This is not conducive to the community, or for newer users that are looking for help. These new users especially will look around see these threads and be deterred from asking for help out of fear they will receive a rude answer.
I am fully willing to help with this, and I volunteer to help moderate.
I agree that this forum needs to be cleaned up. The personal attack in the thread below this one warrants a ban, but there’s no functionality to report offensive posts and it’s unclear who actually moderates it. I think this is low hanging fruit in regards to how the forum could be immediately improved.
I think we can all agree that a venn diagram of marketers and open source enthusiasts would have an extremely small sliver of overlap, and mixing them is like mixing oil with water in many ways. There are many here that understand both worlds, but a huge swath of users will always have unrealistic expectations due to a lack of experience with OSS projects and specifically ones of this scope and at this stage of their development cycle.
The majority of the negativity seems to be coming from people that:
Don’t contribute to Mautic’s development
Don’t contribute to the community
Don’t use Mautic in production (e.g. I tried some things on my sandbox and they didn’t work - Mautic isn’t ready for anybody!!)
There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, but all taken together combined with an inability to offer their criticism in a constructive manner just makes them toxic. They suck up energy and sew frustration in the community that could be better spent helping each other and the project as a whole.
Totally agree!
The off-topic trolls need to be removed to allow a civil discussion on the subject of the topics.
P.S.
Oh, and there’s no need to be all “positivity” and sing “kumbaya” for users who have consistently made negative experiences with Mautic.
Those users must be able to express their criticism WITHOUT having to “wrap it into positive statements” like the corporate bullshitists usually do.
People must be able to call a spade a spade without any snowflake-hurt-feelings nonsense.
There seem to be lots of snowflakes in this forum that cry “foul” everytime someone expresses valid criticism.
Those who only want “positive feedback” fail to realize how utterly stupid that is.
Positive feedback is appropriate when things are great.
But when things are broken, negative feedback is not only appropriate but REQUIRED.
And it is NOT required to wrap negative feedback in positive statements like snowflakes and corporate bullshitists typically do.
I decided to volunteer as a moderator.
I promise I’ll be very fair with normal users and tolerate other people’s opinions no matter how much they deviate from my own. I won’t require people to be nice and “positive” when they are frustrated with things that are broken in Mautic.
Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive feedback. (if not more so)
And I promise I’ll be very hard on the off-topic trolls.
I suggest the off-topic trolls be given a maximum of 2 warnings.
If, after a second warning, an off-topic troll continues trolling (i.e. posting off-topic and/or personal attacks), he or she shall be banned from the forum.
[quote=21765:@JConnell]I agree that this forum needs to be cleaned up. The personal attack in the thread below this one warrants a ban, but there’s no functionality to report offensive posts and it’s unclear who actually moderates it. I think this is low hanging fruit in regards to how the forum could be immediately improved.
I think we can all agree that a venn diagram of marketers and open source enthusiasts would have an extremely small sliver of overlap, and mixing them is like mixing oil with water in many ways. There are many here that understand both worlds, but a huge swath of users will always have unrealistic expectations due to a lack of experience with OSS projects and specifically ones of this scope and at this stage of their development cycle.
The majority of the negativity seems to be coming from people that:
Don’t contribute to Mautic’s development
Don’t contribute to the community
Don’t use Mautic in production (e.g. I tried some things on my sandbox and they didn’t work - Mautic isn’t ready for anybody!!)
There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, but all taken together combined with an inability to offer their criticism in a constructive manner just makes them toxic. They suck up energy and sew frustration in the community that could be better spent helping each other and the project as a whole.[/quote]
Exactly. If this community is to serve it’s purpose, then moderation is needed to keep the conversations appropriate. i.e…:
1: No attacks on anyone else, regardless if they agree with you or not
2: Use of bold and caps should be only for dividing sections in a post, such as a in tutorial post, where you have sub-headers
3: Conversations can go off-topic as long as it is still constructive, and focused around the same general idea, that is how conversation in real life goes.
4: When another forum member suggests stopping the attacks on another(regardless if they are a moderator or not) then the person will do so
An option to block specific users would be a great addition as well.
@manageit @abb @JConnell Thanks to each of you for wanting to volunteer with moderating in the Forums and elsewhere. We’re on the fast track to address this and will be equipping/empowering leaders in our community to guide these kinds of conversations moving forward. Be on the lookout for more details coming soon. Until then, I would encourage all of us to review and consider our current Code of Conduct, and model it in every interaction, as it will be the standard by which everyone, including moderators, will be held. https://www.mautic.org/code-of-conduct/
@jseevers Fully Agreed.
All,
In the interests of clarity, I’d like to point out that I am an ardent believer in free speech.
The recent flame wars do not require a knee jerk reaction towards moderation. The vast majority of conversations here are civil (even collegial), useful, and on topic.
I’d like to quote Billy Connolly for a second…
“The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one”
and suggest we swap the word politician for moderator.
Please take that in the predominantly humorous spirit in which it is intended. I am not suggesting for a second that anyone is trying to amass power and ascend to the position of demagogue by becoming a forum moderator (hell, if that worked, I’d be president of the world based on all the time I spent moderating Bulletin Board forums back in the day LOL).
Regards
Jo
I also fully agree with free speech, and the freedom to express opinions. I however also believe that if a community is to be successful in its goals, there must be some direction possible when it is needed.
I for several years was acting GM of several night clubs, I always told the security staff, “Your job is more about people being aware that you are there, than actually needing to act tough”
The same should apply to community moderators, everyone knows they are there because they just like anyone else contribute to the conversations, but everyone knows they if needed will defend the values of community when it is called for.
My interest in assisting is more based on my lack of programming and documenting skills, while diplomacy is a strong skill I possess, which provides an avenue for me to contribute to this community and project.
@manageit , I totally get where you are coming from. Just be aware that diplomacy and moderation are two different things.
TBH, I’m not overly concerned either way, but do believe moderation is largely un-required, and that diplomacy would suffice in the vast majority of cases. The few edge cases, I’m not so worried about.
I’m happy to let the majority call it (long live universal sufferage LOL)
[quote=21808:@JoPitts]“The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one”
and suggest we swap the word politician for moderator. [/quote]
Brilliant! I like both of those ideas.
A lot! 
[quote=21811:@manageit]I always told the security staff, “Your job is more about people being aware that you are there, than actually needing to act tough”
The same should apply to community moderators.[/quote]
Very good!
And I agree that the mere presence of a moderator with a ban hammer should substantially reduce the off-topic trolls and the 14-year old snowflake-kids (of which there seem to be a lot in this forum) spewing their off-topic garbage or cry “you hurt my feelings!” when they don’t agree with a particular opinion/feedback or with the tone it was expressed in.
And by the way, I’m well aware of the tone I use when presenting certain things.
I’m just the kind of guy who prefers to call a spade a spade when I see one.
And when I see a spade covered in horse shit I’m gonna call it what it is: A spade covered in horse shit.
I’m certainly not gonna smear honey all over the spade that’s covered in horse shit.
(even if some of the 14-year old kids that frequent this forum like to lick such a spade because it’s free)