Moderating off-topic messages

This Site Feedback
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Ich hatte eigentlich gehofft, dass die Diskussionen hier mehr moderiert werden wenn es Off-Topic geht oder sich nur noch im Kreis dreht. Aber der angesprochene Faden zeigt, es geht hier weiter wie im alten Forum.

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Hi @Langlaeufer

I’ve moved your message to a new topic, since it seems you are asking about how to improve off-topic message moderation.

Could you provide an example on where off-topic messages were not moderated?

Note that anyone can flag a message as off-topic and the corresponding moderators will review and act on it.

Cheers.

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my suggestion: create “Offtopic” Category
“Topics that are not about OpenStreetMap or do not fit in any other category.”

for example:

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This was already being discussed here

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5

Thanks for the try of moderation but now the context is lost:

here it is:
more or less un-moderated thread: MTB-Trail gelöscht, weil "nicht offiziell" Discussion turns in a loop

dissatisfaction about the state

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This does not fit to my comment which is now the topic of this thread.

My comment is about improving the moderation in this forum. The category “This Site Feedback” fits.

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Essentially, the issue is more about a complete lack of a structured discussion where a bit more moderation could make a difference.

Right now, people are repeating more or less the same viewpoints over and over, there’s never any sort of conclusion. On top, people bring in more and more irrelevant topics to the discussion, which only adds further distraction.

Exactly how it used to be in the old forum (if you happen to remember).

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Are there other places/communities (or even inside OSM) where you have seen discussions being more structured and productive? What was good about them?

Is there a specific thing you feel moderators can do better to improve the situation?

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My suggestion would be summarize the discussion at one point, have a vote and/or define specific follow up actions (maintain wiki pages explaining the situation, reach out to other stakeholders for better / more relevant input, 
), then close the topic. Constantly bug people to stay on topic and avoid repeating the same arguments over and over (where summarizing the discussion could also help with).

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10

thanks @mmd
this is also my point.

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One options would be to find a “Driving healthy and productive online discussions” framework (there are many) that works for this community and offer this as reference material to all mods.

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Exactly how it used to be in the old forum (if you happen to remember).

this is just natural, in the end there are still all the same people. Only difference: they now have buttons which can hide other’s messages, with really low thresholds, and trigger happy mods :wink:

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