An Idea: More Safety without More Mods
Here's the suggestion. Numerous idea have been suggested such as most recently @Cristiana33 's attempt to get more moderator coverage by arranging time slots. Could be now with the teams this will work, but as @Amelia said, people might have time commitments which wouldn't allow such set times on a consistent basis.
IDEA: What if in every room there was a general "moderator request", not a report button about a speccific listener, but a general button members or listeners could press when they feel like a mod is needed and then an alert can show up on the screens of all mods, and/or in the mod support room or maybe even it will have to be on the screen's off all listeners. The alert would be something to the affect of "Moderator requested to Depression Support Room." Maybe, like GR chats, there could even be a way for a moderator to "take" the mod request so we won't have 5 mods coming to a single room, or the alternative of no mods coming with each assuming that someone else will take it.
This would ensure that mods would immediately be able to come to rooms that have no mod but have an issue. Also, many listeners/members won't want to file a report about a specific person but will be more comfortable to use a general call button.
The one issue with this though could be that a mod who comes will be joining in the middle of a situation, not really knowing what's going on, but again, this is no worse than a member having to go to another room looking for an available mod, and then that mod coming.
Also I'll make clear that this isn't a replacement for having mods moderate rooms actively, but as such isn't always possible, and soemtimes simply not neccessary, this would be a great feature.
Btw, i hope the subject wasn't misleading, it wasn't supposed to sound like more safety because there are less mods :)
Please share your thoughts, additional ideas, or anything of the sort!
Tagging tech ideas maven @KrinkTheMellowUnicorn
@SethK thanks! I appreciate the problem-solving and discussion
tagging @Anomalia - keeper of the suggestion box...
Hey,
This is a good idea, but I am concerned that members may not want mod presence even when they need it, like for example, during a conflict, and some times the other members may not think it's a big deal and ignore it too..
Members already have the ability to send a form for emergencies. And we all should be able to see when that happens - Heather sent an email a while ago about it - don't you get notifications whenever someone needs help in a specific room?
Hi @SethK
I like your idea of having the 'mod needed' notification show up as a pop up or some other notification other than an email alert. Maybe something similar to the pop up that encourages us to take a GR (although that should be opt-in), or even a little notification in the green/orange bar alongside the GR count.
I don't know how difficult this would be to implement from a code standpoint though. I imagine it would be non-trivial at this point. I'll tag @KrinkTheMellowUnicorn on this.
What I'm not too keen about is the request being a one-push button. I personally like that in order to request a mod someone has to fill out a form with a few fields. Yes, it takes some time but I think in many cases it helps the person take pause and maybe determine whether a mod is really needed or whether there might be some other solution - muting the person, leaving the room for a few minutes, etc.
I also think a one-push mod summoning button will be overused to the point that it becomes the Button That Cries Wolf - similar to the way people use the 'Refer' button to harass members.
Lastly, if you'd like to PM me I can send you the info on how to set yourself up to receive alerts from the emergency mod form.
@soothingpurrr Very good points you raise. You're right that this button probably will be overused and people will be pressing it more than necessary, however, unlike a refer button where over-pressing harms people, here there's no harm done if the mod comes to the room, sees that things are safe, and then leaves (I'm assuming that the mods will be responsible and assess, not just jump to conclusions banning and deleting messages). Nobody besides the button presser and the mod ever has to know that the button was pressed. No harm done.
However in case we think that it will be overused and just an annoyance to mods, it might be prudent to make this button available only to listeners or some sort of limitation that enables some sort of system of checks and balances.
Conclusion: I do think that having a method of immediately calling a mod into rooms would be helpful and put less stress on mods to be in all rooms at the same time.
@SethK - We do have something like this in place right now. You can learn how to receive emergency form alerts here. :)
@Heather Thank you Heather. I saw that. I spoke to @soothingpurr about it. While the system currently in place is definitely something, but for a number of reasons I think that a system we're speaking of in this forum would be infinitely more effective.
For starters, if you take a look at the excel spreadsheet where the reports come in, you'll see that there are only a handful which come in every day. In actuality, there are many more issues which arise in the rooms than merely the ones which are filed. The current system isn't catching those. There are other points as well...
Thats a pretty risky idea because maybe people will take advantage of that situation but Id go for it
@SethK - Definitely an interesting idea and one that could be quite useful! Can I ask you to submit it to the Listener Suggestion Box so that we don't lose track of it and I can make sure it gets seen by the community managers and ambassadors?
Thanks!
