Have a group of moderators who audit reports

[Brian9824]

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

This helps prevent any bad moderation, and helps identify mistakes. The group would consist of multiple moderators who rotate around, and they are not allowed to audit their own responses. I know several users have raised concerns over moderators whom are being manipulated and this would be a relatively easy way to help improve the quality and accuracy of moderation

[Brian9824]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Start_Running:

I would be rather surprised if this already wasn't a thing behind the scenes. Moderators , especially at the professional outsourced level, have supervisors and are subject to reviews by their client.

It might be, if not it should be, its basic practices really. Hence why i mentioned in the OP i'm unsure if they actually do this or not.

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από kitt:

funny.. one of your guys get booted and suddenly you want audits etc while you normally would just say: don't break the rules/follow the simple rules





turn tabled and such lol




better comedy than the coup or any Biden speech..

I didn't know this was baseball and that there were "teams", does that make you the mascot?

[Garou]

I've asked for this too several times. More ways to prevent mistakes is a good thing.

[Brian9824]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Psymon²:

snip

Interesting, I couldn't quite understand your reply, so your saying you agree with having audits to make sure moderation is accurate?

Or you'd prefer no audits and don't care if moderation is accurate? Could you clarify your response, I wasn't able to tell what your opinion on the idea was from it.

[Zefar]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από brian9824:

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

We'd just have "Who watches the Watchmens Watchmen?" situation. Then it'd be, who watches those people?

It ends at Valve or with the developer/publisher of the game.

It's better to just put those people onto moderation duty instead of watchmen duty.

[Brian9824]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Zefar:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από brian9824:

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

We'd just have "Who watches the Watchmens Watchmen?" situation. Then it'd be, who watches those people?

It ends at Valve or with the developer/publisher of the game.

It's better to just put those people onto moderation duty instead of watchmen duty.

Well the entire point is it should indeed end with Valve. Valve employs a 3rd party company, and as their employer its their duty to make sure the companies work is up to their standards. Valve doesn't want to hire the staff to handle the tickets which is why they outsourced it, but they need an independent party from the moderators to audit it to make sure the standards are there.

It's not a slight to moderation, but you never trust the audits to the same people who are being audited. You have to have it be a different independent group. Even the US government for instance has watchdog groups that independently moderate and call out potential issues that are separate from the government.

The buck stops with Valve who signs their paycheck, and its far less manpower intensive to audit then to do your own moderation.

[Brian9824]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Zefar:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από brian9824:

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

We'd just have "Who watches the Watchmens Watchmen?" situation. Then it'd be, who watches those people?

It ends at Valve or with the developer/publisher of the game.

It's better to just put those people onto moderation duty instead of watchmen duty.

Were you aware of any type of audit or QC that was ever done in regards to moderation back in the day? I mean for all I know they already do this, just no way to know really.

[KalGimpa]

if they hired a reputable company,

this should already be happening

just to make sure that all of the employees are on the same page

or if any of them have an abnormal amount of overturned decisions they can figure out where it is that the misunderstanding is happening and hopefully get it cleared up

people have differing ideas about things and having the management make positions clear helps

of course,

if it is like most of these paid groups,

they are handling several businesses at once and the employees are probably doing the work of 10 people each

[RiO]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Crazy Tiger:

Can't people just stop with making stupid suggestions about moderation and just, you know, ignore the people they don't like? All it achieves is maintaining a toxic status quo on the forums.

...
This one actually isn't stupid. It's making a damn lot of sense.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Zefar:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από brian9824:

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

We'd just have "Who watches the Watchmens Watchmen?" situation. Then it'd be, who watches those people?

It's not necessarily a Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? situation because there is no distinct layering of power and control. This would be the moderators themselves auditing random picks of each other's reports. So the question has an answer: the watchmen are watching the watchmen.

Not to keep each other in check. But primarily to correct and learn from mistakes; so that overall they can present a better result to their bosses - the actual layer of power above them.

And their bosses would be very interested in getting moderation handled with high accuracy, because as of 2024 as part of the Digital Services Act the EU is going to require periodic transparency reporting on the total number of moderations; the incorrect moderations; the correct moderations; and the number of corrected - i.e. turned over - moderations. And if they don't like those numbers then there are several legal incentives to get a company to improve them. And none of those are profitable.

[Brian9824]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από KalCuey:

if they hired a reputable company,

this should already be happening

just to make sure that all of the employees are on the same page

or if any of them have an abnormal amount of overturned decisions they can figure out where it is that the misunderstanding is happening and hopefully get it cleared up

people have differing ideas about things and having the management make positions clear helps

of course,

if it is like most of these paid groups,

they are handling several businesses at once and the employees are probably doing the work of 10 people each

Yeah, hence why i'm curious if this is already a thing, and if not it definitely should be. Only way for steam to know if they are getting what they paid for.

[Odra]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από brian9824:

Hopefully some of the volunteer mods could chime in on if this was ever a thing or discussed, but one of the best practices for moderation is to have a group do random audits on tickets and their response.

I doubt it was random, but once in a while a question would be raised about an action taken, at that moment a Valve admin would contact the moderator the issue, which would then need to be clarified to the Valve admin.

Depending on the clarification the original decision would stand or be removed.

EDIT: I just read a reply a few posts above this one that reminded me of something.

At times it is best to have fresh eyes on a situation, (an example would be after several hours of dealing with an explosion of spam due to a sale, news event or just a flame war) during such times questions would arise "Am I too invested in this?" "Is anything affecting my judgement?"

During those times one could, before taking action, ask other moderators via chat or post how they saw the situation and the planned response.

I should also mention that it was not unexpected for a moderator to inquire about another moderator's actions and ask for clarifications.