bobthebuilder99:

The more I think about this, the more I see the similarities with every other internet company in history.

1. One company starts the trend (or a group of them).
2. Those companies get complacent and develop into poorly run organizations.
3. An upstart competitor PERFECTS the service delivery model and wipes the floor with the pioneers.
4. The pioneers are permanetly relegated to the background, or they are just forgotten altogether, while the new upstart makes all the money.
5. The creators of the pioneer companies spend their time at bars reminiscing about the 'good ole days' when they were the only game in town. "Hey girl, I created Geocities!" "It was the precursor to Wordpress!"

Unless Seun wants to spend the rest of his life telling people how he created "Nairaland, the precursor to ________", he should get his act together and start whipping the moderators into shape. The world isn't going to wait for him to figure this all out. Take it from someone who has literally used the internet from the BEGINNING. You are treading well worn territory.

If you are not innovating, you are losing.

barefootbandit:

Just quoting so SEUN could see this TWICE!!

splashbaby: He will never see it...Presently been housed in Oguagua88's heart.

Seun: I'm glad that this thread has given people an opportunity to vent. I hope you all feel better now.

No, we do not think we are invincible. We are not resting on our oars. We're doing the best we can do under unique constraints.

Yes, Nairaland could be better, but that is true of every website in the world. Obviously even Facebook and Google could be better.

No, we do not ignore ideas - whether good or bad. We consider every idea that's offered to us and implement the good ones we can.

I think the show profanity button idea is a decent one, but I do not think the 'market' for profanity is big. Most people hate profanity.
We have promised to implement the dislike button immediately after Facebook implements it. This promise still stands!

We understand that we can be beaten, but we're certain that if that happens, it won't be because we don't allow profanity, etc.

barefootbandit:
Aren't you allowed to delete your account on facebook? If you can't think for yourself and implement everything they do why don't you also allow that? Please think of a sensible argument against the dislike button. And who even told you most people hate profanity? And since when did words like "n@k£.d" and "stu·pi·d" become profane?

bobthebuilder99: There are three things that would solve everyone's problems.

A "show profanity" button.

For guests, and by default for new members, profanity is hidden on the website. If you chose to opt in to the "Show Profanity" option, and after you state that you are over 18, you are allowed to see posts in their ORIGINAL format, without the "stupid", "porn", etc edits. One of the many websites that does this well is Cracked.com.

A "dislike" button

Just like most websites, the "dislike" button will allow users to collectively hide posts that the community doesn't agree with WHILE STILL GIVING THE MEMBERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO SEE THE HIDDEN POST. Members will simply click "Show Hidden Post" to see what was there, and then they can click "Like" if they don't agree with the consensus, they can click "dislike" to further downvote the post, or they can just read the post and leave. This one button will eliminate 90% of the problems with mods, and eliminate 90% of their workload.

Allow users to gain a "reputation"

Utilize a point system that allows users to reward helpful, informative, funny, etc posters with "reputation points", "badges", etc. This will encourage posters to maintain ONE user ID, it will encourage users to MAINTAIN THE GOOD REPUTATION of their user ID, and it will make it incredibly easy to identify who should be (and who shouldn't be) a mod. People like Lawyer in the property section will have huge reputations, and it will encourage them to keep posting. It will also allow newer members to realize that his posts carry more value than the various omoniles with disposable accounts who also post in that section. One of the best websites for this is Huffingtonpost.com. That woman is almost a billionaire, so I would do what she does and not be so arrogant.

I fully expect you to ignore my three suggestions, because it seems like people have been asking for these things for years. However, the solutions are just too obvious to not mention them at all.

PS - I think Maclatunji should be banned. Mostly because he doesn't care about the rules in the Islam for Muslims section, he just moderates according to his emotions. To make matters worse, he puts thread, after thread, on the frontpage and then furiously bans and hides anyone who isn't a Muslim.

Uyi Iredia: Very good suggestions. Seun, please consider them.

Uyi Iredia:
Very good suggestions. Seun, please consider them.

Seun:
We have.

Seun: We have.

Uyi Iredia:

Any chance of it being implemented.

tweakdude: My problem is the spambot. Please can anyone(mods or supermod) tell me or my always getting banned i.D(mayowura) why we always get banned? Just as it has been banned right now!
I have been asking for long and it's only a mod that listened to my complains and helped with my unban about three(3) diffrent times with a reply of it was a 'spambot mistake'.
Please Mr. Seun, how long will the spambot continue to make this mistake without me knowing my faults.
I will/would be glad if am being answered this time.

splashbaby: @tweakdude...when the spambot banned you did it also bully you? No I guess..so you are a bit lucky. When Sexkillz banned me the other day, he bullied me to no end. He enlisted one miserable Nairaland queen achukwu"let") to start a proxy battle against me...infact I now feature in one of his dairy posts...You could see how irresponsible he could be...so spambot is better.

okeyxyz: you have and... Did you reject them or you are in the process of implementing them?

Uyi Iredia: Any chance of it being implemented.

Seun:


There are 4 suggestions:

A "show profanity" button: The idea has some merit. However, as I said earlier, the vast majority of Nairaland members hate profanity. Even those that love to use it against others, hate to have it used against them. Allowing people to view all the profanity spewed on Nairaland will lead to more negativity as people react to those profane words. Another problem is that our word censorship filter is used for other purposes besides merely blocking profanity. A "show profanity" feature will render less effective for those purposes. The benefits are theoretical and insignificant while the potential problems are serious and important, therefore the idea is hereby rejected until we have new information.

A "dislike" button: This idea is hereby accepted on one condition: we will implement it after Facebook implements it. We believe that whatever reasons Facebook has for not implementing this idea - despite the fact that many people have asked for it from Facebook - will also apply to us. We will wait for them to do it first. If it works for them, we'll do it too. We are not arrogant; we don't think we are smarter than the folks at Facebook!

"Show hidden post": When posts are hidden on Nairaland, it's because we don't want people to see them. Allowing people to see hidden posts defeats that purpose. When posts are hidden on Facebook, you can't unhide them unless you moderate the wall or facebook pages on which they were posted. This is similar to how it works on Nairaland - moderators can unhide hidden posts, but regular users can't see them. We will work harder to ensure that posts that are not supposed to be hidden are not hidden.

Allow users to gain a "reputation": A person's value to the Nairaland community cannot be accurately expressed as a single number. Some people post great jokes in the Jokes section, but in the politics section they are tribalistic. Some people post many insightful comments in the politics section, then they go to the religion section to bully people of different faiths. Some people post very helpfully most of the time, but they turn into something else when they are stressed, drunk, or at some special time of the month. We believe that a person's reputation is not a single number stored in a database, but a complex and dynamic thing stored in the minds of the people that person has interacted with. Instead of trying to calculate a person's reputation in code, which is futile, we think it is better to let Nairaland members make up their own minds about whose posts are worth taking seriously. On Nairaland, provided you are not breaking the rules, you have a right to be taken seriously, even if you just joined the forum.

c.fours:
I am going to log off now because there is nothing positive coming out of this. you will see it from ur point of view and i will see it from mine. and asking me to "bring it to your attention" is like a cat asking a rat to bring itself to the cat's attention. that's clearly not going to work.
anyway, I'm just glad I'm not the only one who sees a problem with the way nairaland is being moderated. I didn't create this topic after all.

tweakdude: My problem is the spambot. Please can anyone(mods or supermod) tell me or my always getting banned i.D(mayowura) why we always get banned? Just as it has been banned right now!
I have been asking for long and it's only a mod that listened to my complains and helped with my unban about three(3) diffrent times with a reply of it was a 'spambot mistake'.
Please Mr. Seun, how long will the spambot continue to make this mistake without me knowing my faults.
I will/would be glad if am being answered this time.

Seun:


There are 4 suggestions:

A "show profanity" button: The idea has some merit. However, as I said earlier, the vast majority of Nairaland members hate profanity. Even those that love to use it against others, hate to have it used against them. Allowing people to view all the profanity spewed on Nairaland will lead to more negativity as people react to those profane words. Another problem is that our word censorship filter is used for other purposes besides merely blocking profanity. A "show profanity" feature will render less effective for those purposes. The benefits are theoretical and insignificant while the potential problems are serious and important, therefore the idea is hereby rejected until we have new information.

A "dislike" button: This idea is hereby accepted on one condition: we will implement it after Facebook implements it. We believe that whatever reasons Facebook has for not implementing this idea - despite the fact that many people have asked for it from Facebook - will also apply to us. We will wait for them to do it first. If it works for them, we'll do it too. We are not arrogant; we don't think we are smarter than the folks at Facebook!

"Show hidden post": When posts are hidden on Nairaland, it's because we don't want people to see them. Allowing people to see hidden posts defeats that purpose. When posts are hidden on Facebook, you can't unhide them unless you moderate the wall or facebook pages on which they were posted. This is similar to how it works on Nairaland - moderators can unhide hidden posts, but regular users can't see them. We will work harder to ensure that posts that are not supposed to be hidden are not hidden.

Allow users to gain a "reputation": A person's value to the Nairaland community cannot be accurately expressed as a single number. Some people post great jokes in the Jokes section, but in the politics section they are tribalistic. Some people post many insightful comments in the politics section, then they go to the religion section to bully people of different faiths. Some people post very helpfully most of the time, but they turn into something else when they are stressed, drunk, or at some special time of the month. We believe that a person's reputation is not a single number stored in a database, but a complex and dynamic thing stored in the minds of the people that person has interacted with. Instead of trying to calculate a person's reputation in code, which is futile, we think it is better to let Nairaland members individually make up their own minds about whose posts are worth taking seriously. On Nairaland, provided you are not breaking the rules, you have a right to be taken seriously, even if you just joined the forum.

Pipsland78:
What about the opt out option? Why didnt you address it?
Since you've decided to follow facebook, facebook allows people to opt out so why is NL not allowing people to de-register?

And youtube has dislike button and the site is waxing stronger by the day. I wonder why you are afraid of the dislike button. .

Pipsland78:
What about the opt out option? Why didnt you address it?
Since you've decided to follow facebook, facebook allows people to opt out so why is NL not allowing people to de-register?

And youtube has dislike button and the site is waxing stronger by the day. I wonder why you are afraid of the dislike button. .

psky: Seun it is not ethical for you to answer some questions and avoid the others. Please answer the questions posed to you by pipsland.

Pipsland78: What about the opt out option? Why didnt you address it? Since you've decided to follow facebook, facebook allows people to opt out so why is NL not allowing people to de-register?

Seun:
We are currently under-staffed, so we can't implement less important features like this one right now. We will implement it when we have the required manpower. Please bear with us!

Seun:
We are currently under-staffed, so we can't implement less important features like this one right now. We will implement it when we have the required manpower. Please bear with us!