Recent Community Moderation updates
August 21, 2023
Summer vacation is winding up and pretty soon everyone will be back in the thick of things! I hope summer vacation wasn't too sweaty or too short for everyone.
The Community Moderation system has been active for about two months now, and aside from some technical hitches here and there, it seems to be functioning pretty well. Over 80 new activities have been approved through Community Moderation, and around 15 (depending on how I count the data) have been either removed by the submitter or automatically removed. I altered the system to auto-delete activities where the majority of moderators have requested revision, but the activity is over 4 weeks old without sufficient changes.
In order to make it easier to check activities that are still in the moderation stage, I added a Dashboard ticker that should show your activities that haven't been approved yet. It might be a good idea to check on those to see the feedback from the moderators. If your activity is approved, you can still see their feedback by clicking on the activity controls menu (the gear icon in the top right) and clicking on "Moderation history."
I've also added the ability to apply to be a Community Moderator. I've set the criteria that a user must have an account that's at least 6 months old and have at least 3 uploaded activities before they can apply. I might adjust that later, but I think it's important that moderators are generally familiar with the site and how it works, and have a history of positive contributions to it. If you're interested in applying, please visit the "Contribute" page and the link will be visible if your account meets those requirements.
If you are a moderator, I've sorted the list of activities now based on new activities that you haven't voted on, and activities that you've previously voted on with the latest date that they've been revised. My goal is to make it easier to see what you need to look at. I'm really thankful for this initial group of moderators who have done a lot of hard, anonymous work looking through dozens of activities and giving their feedback. They've been able to look into activities much more closely than I've ever been able to, and I think these new activities have benefitted from it.
This system is still quite new and will continue to evolve over time, but it's been encouraging to see it in action. Please let me know if you have any concerns, suggestions, or other feedback. Good luck with your classes!
Thank you for working so hard to keep this site up and running! It really has a benefit for students!
Legend as always Jake, thank you!
thank you for all your hard work!
To follow up on this, I'm still not entirely sure about limiting moderators based on having posted 3 activities. Perhaps there are a lot of people who would do a good job moderating who haven't uploaded their own activities yet. If you have any thoughts about this, feel free to leave a comment on this post or use the Contact form.
おつかれ、Jake! I
m glad the moderation system is working smoothly! This is probably wildly unhelpful, but I see both sides in limiting moderators based on three uploads and not limiting moderators. Selecting moderators who have uploaded shows that they are interested in sharing with and building up the community. On the other hand, it doesnt have any bearing on being a good moderator. Maybe consider going based off account age and interactions that account has with other posts and people in the community?Hello Jake! I love the site and appreciate your dedication to its success. Is it possible to get the Discord back or have some discussion channel on the site? If you have a question or idea to share I don't know where to post it. For example, I'm wondering how people are using ChatGTP in their work flow. I've been using different AI tools lately and they are saving me A LOT of time. It would be great if we could discuss things and share ideas. Thank you
I'm still going back and forth about whether to make a new Discord server. When it's good, it can be very good. There were lots of teachers helping each other in the last one. But when it gets bad, it gets really bad. On the last day of the last one, dozens of people that I'd never met before joined the server and flooded it with personal attacks. It makes me wonder how much time I'd have to spend constructing a well-managed Discord server as opposed to putting that effort into the site itself.
@10moku: perhaps you could start with posting an article or an activity in workshop mode. At least that way people can see it publicly and users can comment. I am really curious how ALTs and JTEs have been using ChatGPT and generative tools.