Should a person who starts a thread have quasi moderator status on their own thread?

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I thought this is an interesting topic. I hope others agree.

Should a person who starts a thread have quasi moderator status on their own thread?

Why I ask this, for example is that occasionally we have threads which are started to discuss subjective issues.

The original poster (starter of the thread) will say in the first post that they wish to discuss issue X (a subjective matter) and they specifically would like posters to stay on topic and not discuss issue Y (scientific ABX etc. matters.)

If someone posts regarding issue Y, is it fair to the original poster, and to the continuity of the thread if this post specifically violates the request of the original poster?

If the original post was clear regarding the topic of conversation, and specified what was not to be the topic of conversation, and the original post during discourse did not breach, or invite the breaching of the rules of the forum; should the original poster have a quasi moderator status, which would allow the original poster to report posts which violate the original guidelines for the thread (eg. I don't want to discuss ABX testing on this thread)?

The result of the report would be that official moderators can then remove the post which breaches the guidelines of the original post?

I think there is merit to this idea.

It would;
a) encourage members to stay on topic.
b) encourage a new thread if the need to discuss scientific measurements on the same topic (for example)
c) reduce threadjacking
d) reduce trolling


What do others think?
 
I strongly disagree with 'OP' thread ownership, the mod team are there to deal with infarctions. There should be no viewpoint deemed so holy that it cannot be inspected and ripped to shreds if required by the weight of subsequent posts.

Forum should be moderated as little as possible, and certainly not by emotional OP's.
 
No, the OP does not own the thread. It is a public conversation. Only a person with a severely inflated view of his own importance (or perhaps certain mental health issues) would try to insist at the start of a conversation what topics and views are acceptable. Anybody is free to start their own website and hold conversations with people who already agree with them there. There are other websites which veer towards one view or another, so some people might be happier on them. Personally, I think it is healthy to have my views challenged although I prefer a reasoned argument based on sound principles rather than mere assertion or regurgitating the view of some guru.

An OP is perfectly free to politely make it clear that he would prefer responses from a restricted set of viewpoints. The rest of us are perfectly free (within the bounds of good manners) to politely ignore this. The mods will police this, as they already do.

I think "scientific measurements" are generally to be preferred to "unscientific measurements" i.e. measure voltage with a DMM rather than sticking your tongue across two points in a circuit and seeing how much it hurts.
 
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I strongly disagree with 'OP' thread ownership, the mod team are there to deal with infractions. There should be no viewpoint deemed so holy that it cannot be inspected and ripped to shreds if required by the weight of subsequent posts.

Forum should be moderated as little as possible, and certainly not by emotional OP's.

Sounds like you enjoy contributing ;)
 
Just another Moderator
Joined 2003
Paid Member
The only thing secret about the moderators, is the fact that moderation decisions are private between the moderation team and the person(s) being moderated (except obviously any public warnings in the threads).

I will draw attention to rule number 12 http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/site-announcements/167561-diyaudio-rules.html This in general goes for discussions about site moderation in general as well.

A while back a new forum, the "Tweakers Sanctuary" I think it was called, was set up. It was an area for people with subjective viewpoints to post and discuss their impressions, effectively a scientific free zone. It failed dismally and was soon abandoned. Despite the fact it was stated in the forum that this was the case, all of points a through d in the first post in this thread were broken if I remember correctly (I was not on the mod team at that time).

Giving each thread starter quasi moderator status will lead to chaos. Would every member on diyAudio make a suitable moderator? I think the answer to that should be obvious, and if you were to implement what has been suggested, effectively everyone does become a moderator.

Tony.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Let me add that the core of the subject, keeping threads on topic, is already possible. If a thread goes off topic, clik the report post (the triangle with exclamation) and send a suggestion, with post #s, to split off the off-topic into a new thread.

We do this all the time, much gets not done because we can't be everywhere.

dave
 
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