Moderation best practices & FAQ

[Peter Junge <pe...@gmx.org>]

Hi moderators, *,

I have a couple of questions WRT the best practices of moderating AOO 
mailing list. As I have found, the mailing lists FAQs 
(ooo-dev-faq@incubator.apache.org) are yet non-existent, so the 
discussion here should also be used to contribute FAQs.

My questions are:

1) Shall moderators contact senders who are not subscribed to a mailing 
list an letting them know that they might not receive the answers to 
their questions? Or, going one step further, pointing those senders on 
the list archive, so they can look for replies there.

I'm not doing this at the moment. If we would agree to do so, it would 
be good to draft a reply template that every moderator can use.

2) Shall moderators contact senders who are disclosing their complete 
contact information (e.g. telephone, address) that it will be exposed in 
public before moderating the posting?

My proceeding is to let those messages through if the sender is 
disclosing corporate contact information that one can find in 
directories or elsewhere. If the sender is disclosing private 
information, I'm not letting the message through but contact the person 
asking for an explicit allowance.

3) Should moderators report frequent spammers to Infra?

IMHO it might make sense to improve spam filters. Is there any automated 
process implemented?


FAQs that seem to be clear are:

Q: Where can I find the Apache committer's mail FAQ:
A: http://www.apache.org/dev/committers.html#mail

Q: Where do I find the "Moderator's and Administrator's Manual" to 
Apache's mailing lists?
A: http://www.ezmlm.org/

Q: How do I recognize if a message on an AOO mailing list has been 
moderated?
A: The header of an moderated email contains the item 'Delivered-To: 
moderator for ooo-*@incubator.apache.org'

More FAQ are certainly welcome.

Best regards,
Peter

Re: Moderation best practices & FAQ

[Simon Phipps <si...@webmink.com>]

On 7 Jun 2012, at 13:42, Rob Weir wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 10:47 PM, Peter Junge <pe...@gmx.org> wrote:
>> Hi moderators, *,
>> 
>> I have a couple of questions WRT the best practices of moderating AOO
>> mailing list.
>> My questions are:
>> 
>> 1) Shall moderators contact senders who are not subscribed to a mailing list
>> an letting them know that they might not receive the answers to their
>> questions? Or, going one step further, pointing those senders on the list
>> archive, so they can look for replies there.
>> 
> 
> I don't do that.  But maybe make this clearer wherever we point users
> to the lists?

I don't do that either, although I would intervene if there was an obvious issue arising because of it. As a general rule, I don't think it's good to assume Moderators will be equipped to intervene in the subject matter of communications; that's for the list to do.

> 
>> I'm not doing this at the moment. If we would agree to do so, it would be
>> good to draft a reply template that every moderator can use.
>> 
>> 2) Shall moderators contact senders who are disclosing their complete
>> contact information (e.g. telephone, address) that it will be exposed in
>> public before moderating the posting?
>> 
> 
> I do that sometimes, depending on context.  

Once again, I would not directly reply unless there was an obvious and serious issue. List members are already pretty jumpy about moderator decisions...


> In the end it is not our responsibility to prevent users from
> disclosing their private information.  It is there responsibility.

I agree, although there are obviously contextually-indicated limits.


>> 
>> 3) Should moderators report frequent spammers to Infra?
>> 
> 
> I have not seen frequent spammers.  I do see the same spam message
> sent to many lists simultaneously.  But I have not seen the same spam
> come days in a row.
> 
>> IMHO it might make sense to improve spam filters. Is there any automated
>> process implemented?

Like Rob, I've not seen cases like this so far, and find the spam filters generally effective. 

> FAQs that seem to be clear are:

If there were to be a link to an FAQ in a mail footer, the three FAQs I would highlight are:

*  How to check if a message has been moderated
*  How to unsubscribe and who to ask for help if you can't 
*  How to get end-user support and the status of the people helping you

S.

Re: Moderation best practices & FAQ

[Rob Weir <ro...@apache.org>]

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 10:47 PM, Peter Junge <pe...@gmx.org> wrote:
> Hi moderators, *,
>
> I have a couple of questions WRT the best practices of moderating AOO
> mailing list. As I have found, the mailing lists FAQs
> (ooo-dev-faq@incubator.apache.org) are yet non-existent, so the discussion
> here should also be used to contribute FAQs.
>

General mailing list FAQ's are on the website here:

http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/mailing-lists.html#participation-guidelines

Users who need basic FAQ's are probably not aware of how to request
the FAQ's via the mailing list.

A little bit on list moderation is here:

http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/ppmc-faqs.html#mailing-lists

(The list of moderators could probably be updated)

> My questions are:
>
> 1) Shall moderators contact senders who are not subscribed to a mailing list
> an letting them know that they might not receive the answers to their
> questions? Or, going one step further, pointing those senders on the list
> archive, so they can look for replies there.
>

I don't do that.  But maybe make this clearer wherever we point users
to the lists?

> I'm not doing this at the moment. If we would agree to do so, it would be
> good to draft a reply template that every moderator can use.
>
> 2) Shall moderators contact senders who are disclosing their complete
> contact information (e.g. telephone, address) that it will be exposed in
> public before moderating the posting?
>

I do that sometimes, depending on context.  For example, if someone
just has an email signature that gives their name and phone number, I
let that pass.  But if they are clearly a confused user, or are a
minor saying "I have a school paper due tomorrow.  I need help, please
call me at 123-456-7890", then I reject that note and contact them and
point them to the support forums.

In the end it is not our responsibility to prevent users from
disclosing their private information.  It is there responsibility.

Another way to look at it is to consider Apache archive policy:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/public-archives.html

As you can see, basic contact information is not considered
confidential.   But things like social security numbers are.   So if
you see something that would be considered confidential per this
policy, then I think it would be reasonable to catch this at
moderation time if possible,

> My proceeding is to let those messages through if the sender is disclosing
> corporate contact information that one can find in directories or elsewhere.
> If the sender is disclosing private information, I'm not letting the message
> through but contact the person asking for an explicit allowance.
>
> 3) Should moderators report frequent spammers to Infra?
>

I have not seen frequent spammers.  I do see the same spam message
sent to many lists simultaneously.  But I have not seen the same spam
come days in a row.

> IMHO it might make sense to improve spam filters. Is there any automated
> process implemented?
>
>
> FAQs that seem to be clear are:
>
> Q: Where can I find the Apache committer's mail FAQ:
> A: http://www.apache.org/dev/committers.html#mail
>
> Q: Where do I find the "Moderator's and Administrator's Manual" to Apache's
> mailing lists?
> A: http://www.ezmlm.org/
>
> Q: How do I recognize if a message on an AOO mailing list has been
> moderated?
> A: The header of an moderated email contains the item 'Delivered-To:
> moderator for ooo-*@incubator.apache.org'
>
> More FAQ are certainly welcome.
>

These are good.   From a moderator's perspective, maybe:

How do I see who is subscribed to the list?

How do I manually unsubscribe someone?


In generally, the lists manage themselves.  Moderator intervention is
mainly needed in scenarios like this:

User is unable or unwilling to unsubscribe themselves.  They start
posting many disruptive angry messages to the list demand to be
removed.  They won't listen to install instructions. Or they are
unable to carry out these instructions.  Maybe they are confused
because of multiple email addresses or a forwarder.  Maybe they share
a PC with someone else who subscribed.  Maybe the spam filters are
preventing them from seeing the unsubscribe confirmation note, or are
preventing ezmlm from receiving the unsubscribe note.   We get
something like this on rare occasions.  In these cases the moderators
can trigger an unsubscribe of the user.


-Rob


> Best regards,
> Peter
>