Hi Friends, I feel like I should make a report about the current system for gallery moderation, which uses voting. As brilliant as it is (in my opinion) it doesn't seem like it will be sustainable for the long run. So far, I can't really say that it's been successful, for more than a week at a time.
So far, we have not been able to attract a moderator who can either (a) comprehend the system, or (b) stick around for more than a day or 2. Or perhaps it could be explained by not finding someone motivated enough, I'm not sure.
We have had several volunteers to moderate, but they seem to have done so in order to acquire enough access to see what it's about. Once they see, they take one or 2 voting actions, and never show up again. (I haven't deleted them off the member list, in case they might start working again, but I might as well, since they could always re-apply, if they change their mind.)
We did have one moderator who stuck around for quite a while, but whom needed a good deal of support (more than really is appropriate).
Fortunately for the gallery, when a moderator flags an item, it becomes hidden. So the gallery doesn't suffer. It's really only the database that suffers, since the images (or other items) are never really deleted. They're just piling up on the Moderation Page. (Well, occasionally Moini reports spam, which I can vote on, which causes it to be deleted. But if I'm the one who reports it (and I do most of it), no one else ever casts the final votes.)
I'm not sure what the best solution would be. One option would be to go to the traditional type of system, where one moderator can delete an item. And certainly, fewer moderators would be needed for that. Currently, one person could handle all the moderation, with that type of system (and actually does, for the most part).
For the voting system, we need a 2nd moderator to make the final final vote. Also, this type of system works best when 2 or more moderators are communicating, in addition to voting.
For a little while, I could post a message to the Docs list calling moderators in to clean up the page, and that would work. But lately, it's not.
Otherwise, I'm not sure what other solutions would be possible.
Since developers are currently very busy working on hackfests and 1.0, I don't think it will hurt to just let things pile up on the Moderation page, for now. But just so I'm not the only one who knows it, the Moderation Page is already long enough to make it a good half hour to an hour's work for an experienced moderator to come in and clean up the page. A new moderator would need more time, and maybe much more.
(Well, at least it would take that long if they want to read the messages and participate. Of course it would just take 15 minutes to go in and vote to delete everything, regardless....in which case, why not go to a traditional system after all.)
Just a report, for what it's worth :-)
All best, brynn