Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Summary:

(Hopefully) in the home stretch in creating a Discord Staff Structure closer to the other staff teams.

Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 12 Oct 2023 14:33

After fruitful discussion and multiple revisions, the Discord Staff Structure & Rules Update policy is ready for voting!

Part One: Clarification & Additions to the Discord Rules

+ Open

1. Be respectful to others. This rule covers both your tone and behavior; being consistently rude, edgy, or disruptive is disrespectful. Sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry also break this rule. Gossiping about or insulting other users and authors, as well as making fun of new members or coldposts is also breaking this rule. You must also actively avoid potential triggers and must stop a discussion when asked to by a moderator or when another user is uncomfortable. Respect people's pronouns. Joke pronouns or bigoted statements in bios are considered a rule 1 violation.

2. Consistently or maliciously derailing conversations, baiting other users, and other obviously disruptive or trolling behavior will quickly result in mutes or kicks, progressing to bans on repeated offenses.

3. The server age requirement is 16. Mods reserve the right to ban if we believe you to be lying about your age or your behavior is indistinguishable from an underage user. Do not post your age in the introductions channel.

4. Don't spam. That means no repetitive low-effort messages in rapid succession in any channel. Use the channels appropriately. Channel topics will state what that channel is for. Spamming users in channels or DMs with server invites, advertisements, or other unwelcome behavior can result in a kick or a ban.

5. No roleplaying and no impersonation of others (either real or fictional). Joining in-character as an animal, fictional character, etc is prohibited as are roleplay-like server nicknames such as "SCP-XXXX". The password is: I will follow the rules. Setting your server nickname to that of another user or moderator is also prohibited.

6. All NSFW or harmful content is strictly prohibited. Discussions of questionable or explicit topics must be spoilered and tagged (surround your text with two sets of ||, or encase links in triangle brackets like <this>, and explain what is behind the spoilers); they are allowed with discretion unless a mod orders the conversation to be stopped or other individuals are uncomfortable. Images that contain flashing lights or potentially triggering content must also be spoilered and tagged.

7. Server Moderators and Server Admins have the final say for warnings, kicks, and bans. All stop orders must be obeyed. If any users sees an issue or situation unfolding, use the /callmod command via Mnemosyne (rather than pinging individual moderators). If you have an issue with a moderator's decision or behavior, DM a server admin directly.

tl;dr: Rules have been condensed slightly for similar rules, and rule 7 has been reworded to request the /callmod action rather than pinging individuals or user moderation directly. That being said, 'back-seat moderating' is not explicitly a rule here, as a) if someone is legitimately trying to act in the manner of a moderator (to the point where it's causing issues) then it's already covered under other rules and b) it is not a major issue for the server as a whole currently, as most users are perfectly capable of pushing back against bigoted behavior without crossing the line to staff impersonation. We have also codified the rules against bigoted statements and joke pronouns.

Part Two: Staff Restructure

Discord Moderation Staff will be restructured to follow a similar structure to other Site Staff Teams:

Captain: Discord will have one Captain. Captains must be Operating Staff or higher. They are charged with recruiting for the team, resolving moderation issues and questions, taking reports against moderators, and ensuring that documentation is completed in a timely manner.
Vice Captains: Discord will have three subteams, each headed by at least one Vice Captain:

• Moderation Subteam: Headed by 2-3 Vice Captains, all members of the Discord Staff will work as moderators to ensure that the server remains safe, stable, and supported as needed during the day. Members who remain exclusively focused on this subteam are expected to act as active moderators on a more consistent basis during the course of the day than those dedicated to Documentation and Automation, although the expectation will remain that any /modcall should be responded to by any active members who see it.
• Documentation Subteam: Headed by at least one Vice Captain, this Subteam will be tasked with ensuring daily porting of any Discord Actions (bans, appeals, etc.) to O5 to ensure an up to date record of all decisions made by the group.
• Bot and Automation Subteam: Headed by Yossi, this subteam will focus on maintaining and updating the various bots and automation tools used by the server.

Members/Moderators: General staff working to see to the daily needs of the server as well as the expectations of the subteam to which they are assigned.

Junior Members/Moderators: OS/JS-level staff members and new recruits who have applied to join the team and are learning the structure and moderator actions, and assist subteams as assigned.

Additional Notes:

• To avoid confusion with the staff site rank, the term 'admin' will be retired for 'captain', 'vice captain', etc.
• All current staff (including the active server admins) will be audited for continued interest and availability to act on the moderation staff team, outlining expectations moving forward.
• Captain and Vice Captains will be decided by discussion between wiki admins and the remaining moderation team members.
• After restructure is complete, Captain and Vice Captains will work to establish a decision tree guideline for moderation decisions made in the server, although with the understanding that each decision is discussed in moderation chat as situations arise. Any warning, kick, or ban will require a moderator signing off as approving, well as a clear listing of the rules which were violated with examples as relevant. While the ban information should be conveyed to the user via Mnemosyne.aic, a secondary record on O5 will be maintained by the Documentation staff for transparency.
• While any OS is welcome to apply to join the Moderation team, they will not automatically join at the rank of Moderator; they will serve an interim as a junior moderator and then be put up for a community vote prior to becoming a full Moderator.

* While promotions should be completed before the rework goes through, any JS who are currently at the rank of Discord Moderator would be grandfathered in at the new Moderator ran. No longer relevant.

• Recruitment will enter a 'rolling recruitment' phase (see Ori's description here: https://discord.com/channels/877710488673329162/877718807194525746/1139604717408899224 ) where we are actively recruiting members at all periods during the year (outside of the normal promotion cycle of Site Staff). Any new moderation staff members who join as Junior Staff will go up for promotion at the same time as Site Staff.

Mainsite Mirror

Last edited on 17 Oct 2023 01:50 by AriadnesThread Show more

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Cicada3301Fan 12 Oct 2023 15:38

The rules condensing looks good, but for #7, I think it couldn’t hurt to also say how if a user sees a problem and another user is acting up/doing inappropriate stuff, to report via Mnemosyne as well. If possible, saying how to report a message via Mnemosyne in the rules somewhere could also be beneficial.

As for the staff restructure, I see no visible problems with it.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 12 Oct 2023 15:44

Good call, I'll tighten up that language. I think it's in other places in the rules but it makes sense to reiterate there.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Cicada3301Fan 12 Oct 2023 15:47

👍

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Prismal 12 Oct 2023 15:58

Gave feedback on this when you were still drafting, I see you implemented some of it, there is still some that I think should be changed:

"Captain and Vice Captains will be decided by discussion between wiki admins and the remaining moderation team members."

The way in which this should be decided is not defined and is essentially just passing the buck for that to be figured out in post. I think this policy should define how the decision is made.

Personally I think just a vote by the current members of the Discord Team should be the way it's decided. Iirc you disagreed and believe wiki admins should decide? If that is indeed the case the fact that wiki admins decide should be outright stated here.

You also don't define what happens to those who don't make become captains and vice captains. Do they keep server admin permissions? I assume not given you want to replace the term admin with those two but it's not clear. Do all who don't become the captain stay on as vice captain if they want?

Also, ultimately captains can remove and replace their vice captains if they want to right? So electing vice captains doesn't truly matter because the new captain doesn't have to go along with that if they don't want to, I don't think?

Some new things I'm noting:

there's a minor typo "singing off" instead of "signing off"

You don't mention wiki admins as being able to be Junior Mods or Moderators, which seems like a minor oversight.

Haven't really looked at part 1 yet but those are my concerns with part two. It's good work overall and I very much appreciate you taking the initiative on this, but I will say, I'm going to vote no unless there's a defined mechanism for how captaincy and server admin roles are decided past just "wiki admins and Discord Team figures it out" which is what I'm getting from this currently.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 12 Oct 2023 16:10

I don't disagree with the idea of an internal vote for Captain inherently, but I also don't know if that's how we've historically set up or restructured a team, thus my choice to open it up for further discussion. I'm not sure that a purely internal vote for a team that is currently struggling a little to keep up with its needs is the best call, which is why I'm welcoming Admin input with the ultimate decision specifically because I'm just not sure.

I recognize that I didn't explicitly define what happens with the current 'Server Admins', but the idea is that once all staff on this team recommit to the team, those decisions are made by those individuals at that time. I don't expect anyone would want to leave completely if they weren't chosen to be Captain or Vice Captain or anything, but I also didn't think it needed to be concretely stated what they would become since that would differ on an individual basis.

I really am not trying to pass the buck here, I'm just trying to get to the point where the buck can be decided at all. We've kind of stagnated on this process, so I would really like to just get the discussion moving so we can restructure, recruit, and sustain a functional team moving forward.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Prismal 12 Oct 2023 21:29

A totally fair perspective

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Rounderhouse 12 Oct 2023 16:20

The way in which this should be decided is not defined and is essentially just passing the buck for that to be figured out in post.

Sure it does: it says it'll be discussed and a conclusion agreed upon. We don't need a voting protocol to decide every Vice Cap, the Captain takes input from team members and makes an informed decision — same as literally every other team. It's implicitly clear, and I don't see why or how it should be different here.

EDIT: Oh, I misread — I thought this was about how the Cap would decide vice caps. Well, same difference — I think wiki admins should take input from team members and decide on a captain who then decides on Vice Captains following further input.

Last edited on 12 Oct 2023 16:24 by Rounderhouse Show more

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Prismal 12 Oct 2023 21:31

I'm cool with it, I didn't necessarily take it as written to mean that wiki admins get to decide with input from the team is all. I think if that's the intent it should just say "wiki admins will decide the team captain with input from Discord Team members" or something of that sort, rather than the way it's currently written which I think doesn't *necessarily* mean that

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

divinephobia 12 Oct 2023 17:51

Big fan of the documentation subteam! Having designated people will be much easier instead of it being on the whole of the mod team, and aiming for a daily (or close to it) upkeep will make the workload seem significantly less, as we only average about 5 bans per day (at least, last I did the numbers for it).
Just a question, though I assume it is the case - discord staff will be able to be part of multiple subteams within it, yes? I just wanted to check.

As for who becomes captain and vice captains, I think a vote would be ideal with a discussion prior and during.

Could I get some clarification or a re-wording of "While promotions should be completed before the rework goes through, any JS…"? I'm just having trouble understanding what it means for some reason, grandfathered in how?

Those are all the thoughts I have right now, I may have more input later. Great work!!

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 12 Oct 2023 18:04

Oh yes, the idea would be that the subteams would be a lot like MAST where it's somewhat fluid. Everyone can help with everything, but the specific subteams are responsible for x, y, or z thing.

The whole Junior Staff grandfathering clause was because we have a couple of people who are currently Moderator level on the Discord Staff, but Junior Staff on the site staff list. Promotions are going on right now though, and so likely by the time we actually restructure there won't be anyone in that weird middle ground between the two promotion types.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

divinephobia 12 Oct 2023 18:20

Alright, thank you!

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

LORDXVNV 13 Oct 2023 21:33

Promotions are going on right now though, and so likely by the time we actually restructure there won't be anyone in that weird middle ground between the two promotion types.

To my knowledge this might(?) not be true after this current promotion cycle — there will be 1 individual grandfathered in because they aren't up for OS promotion this round.

Personally I don't really like the existence of the grandfather clause, especially since after this promo round it'll be a clause carved out for literally 1 person given how promotions seem to be going. I'm not going to fight it, but it does leave a sour taste in my mouth. I don't want to single out anyone specifically, but one person who's pretty close to unanimously passing this round failed a previous promo round, presumably got feedback from their captain, and changed/improved their behavior to the point where the current result is highly in their favor. Being put up for vote might be like one of the few times in a staff tenure that people actually give and get feedback on other staff members — that's another conversation, to be frank. Maybe there's a place for more candid conversations overall.

It's a check, at least, on a disc-like power, to be able to pass an OS vote and frankly it's historically been a shoo-in vote for most people. I'm not going to lie, I was probably a beneficiary of promotions reform, but I'm not in a disc-like role, I don't want to be in a disc-like role, and I don't expect to be ever given a disc-like role. "Moderator", however, as I've written on before, pretty much just is a disc-like role. After this promo round we'll have mostly remedied the discrepancy where "not-verified-as-confidently-trusted" (I can't for sure say "untrusted") individuals can decide to ban people from the current most prominent community space and I'd rather not formally enshrine exceptions to that in policy even if it is just historical.

I just feel like it would be cleaner to demote them to Junior Mod after the policy goes through with the understanding that they'll be put up for Mod and OS in the next cycle or ASAP. And functionally it would just be a title change for a third of a year — JMods, to my recollection, can weigh in on disciplinary and policy discussions the same as other mods. My core assumption here of course is that this would strictly be a temporary title change, because the things that actually matter — trustworthy reputation, friendship, confidence in one's abilities — are largely indifferent and invariant to title.

I'm not going to push for this beyond this post. I think willingly giving up being grandfathered in with intent to be put up for OS/Mod promotion the next cycle would be a small, minor, and temporary sacrifice with the long-term effect of showing that staff has a set of rules and believes in following it — but I know that's an easy thing to ask when I'm not the one who'd be making the sacrifice.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

LORDXVNV 13 Oct 2023 21:45

I like the broad strokes of the whole thing, I just wonder if there might be an opportunity for process improvement specifically in the Documentation subteam.

Super big fan of the documentation subteam. I think keeping the records up to date will help keep things moving smoothly. I do wonder however whether they go into enough detail. I also don't want to bog up a very good outline process by going into detail too much on implementation, at least in this case, but maybe I can illustrate an example:

Most documentation for bans is fairly straightforward — bigotry, transphobia, etc. But once in a while, you get a case like this where the reasons listed are just Rule1/Rule2 violations. This is understandable as just a porting over of what the Discord ban record is, but I feel like it could be more detailed in some way or another. And I don't know, maybe this is really more of a feature request for "give the discord ban command a field where moderators can input a log of the offending message, which would be a post in #private-server-mod that discusses what the user did to deserve discipline". I understand the warn and log features might do something similar but I know how things can get lost in upscroll. The reason I suggest that particular configuration is that I don't want to strip away too much privacy from disciplinary proceedings — though, I do think people have a right to know which messages or set of messages violated which rules.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Ethagon 14 Oct 2023 12:09

Agreed. The ban records don't need to be as in-depth as the irc ban records are, but the O5 version should in my opinion at least be one or two sentences long, where it outlines what was done and what this violates. Similar to a lot of disc actions for the mainsite.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 15 Oct 2023 18:02

A big hope I think we all have is that by having a subteam dedicated to the documentation of moderation is that we find ways to make them a little more through and transparent so they're helpful in the future. So often, we're just kind of treading water on the moderation end of things that it ended up natural to just rely on the log bots, but as you said they get really lost in the upscroll of this busy of a server. I can't promise immediate, total improvement but I know that we're all working to improve the processes, especially around documentation, so that there's clarity all around.

Also, the grandfather clause kind of got in there prior to promotions starting, and as this won't go up for voting until after promotions ends that clause in general will likely just be struck as it's no longer going to apply to anyone (I think, like 99% sure).

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

torcsandantlers 17 Oct 2023 01:42

Admins/Captains: This has always seemed like a pointless differentiation. We refer to the heads of every other teams as Captains, why not Discord?
I also agree with the need to have a single Captain operating on top of a team with multiple Vice Captains. Too often the Discord team seems held up by trying to get its 3 or 4 captains present and in agreement.

Recruitment: There is no reason that the Discord Team has to or should run recruitment the way it does. Almost every other team either recruits as soon as they find eligible candidates or have an open recruitment policy. As it stands, the recruitment system creates periods of artificial scarcity in moderators which increases their stress and decreases their effectiveness; this in turn encourages moderators to leave. Fewer moderators also increases gaps in enforcement and leads to distrust. To be clear, this is something that could be changed at any point by the discord captaincy.

Subteams: This is an great idea and has seen much success in MAST, CO, IO, and Crit; differentiating tasks helps to create an environment where the processes can be specialized and streamlined. Having a Vice Captain(s) in charge of each will also make accountability for each tasks easier. I know that running MAST would be a nightmare without the Section Heads. This will also help to combat burnout amongst moderators since there will no longer be the specter of documentation looming behind all of them.

I think that the three chosen subteams are good, but they could be added or changed at any time. This is, again, something that could be changed at any point by the discord captaincy. Organization of team structure is not truly a policy matter.

Junior Member/Moderator: This distinction is fine, and I agree with holding OS and Admins at an introductory rank. I think it's potentially confusing, but I don't see a better way to do it.

Decision Tree: I think that this would go a long way towards establishing trust with the community. Especially so if the decision tree is published publicly.

Disciplinary actions: Requiring a moderator to sign off is a good move. And the increase in documentation will also go a long way to recover the relationship between the Discord Team and the community. As Lord has brought up in the past, the Discord team functions also as a disciplinary team. This has to be kept in mind when it comes to the standards of care and documentation that the team undertakes.

Choosing the next Captain: I think as it is written makes sense. "…discussion between…" clearly indicates that both sides would have input. Admins do have ultimate authority on deciding Captains - in as much as they can remove captains through a Captaincy Review, but I think that laying out that this will be a conversation is a good thing.

Conclusion: Overall, I'm happy with this proposal. I think that in this situation - where the team seems to be paralyzed - this is a sensible way to begin moving forward again. I think that after the restructure we need to figure out a way to meaningfully repair the relationship between the Discord Team and members of its community.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

AriadnesThread 17 Oct 2023 02:10

Glad to hear it! I hope to have this up for voting next week, at least for the restructure and rule changes.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

Mew-ltiverse 18 Oct 2023 17:17

This all sounds solid. I mainly mirror torcs opinions here. I definitely think the “rolling staff” idea is also very good as well, as many other staff teams do the same thing. I also think discord subteams are a good idea, basically it’s just good to try and structure discord like other staff teams.

Re: Discord Staff Restructure (Nearing Final Proposal)

FlyPurgatorio 18 Oct 2023 22:17

Amazing work here, Ari!

Any warning, kick, or ban will require a moderator signing off as approving, well as a clear listing of the rules which were violated with examples as relevant.

I would suggest a moderator *other than the one performing the warn/kick/ban* needs to sign off. Just so that it isn't a "Fly was kicked by Ari. Observing: Ari."

Additionally, I'd already like to put this bit on the agenda for the future punitive action restructuring: instructions on how to deal with Deer College actions carried out by critstaff in the "decision tree guideline for moderation decisions made in the server". Just to make sure we don't miscommunicate between teams.