The need for paid moderators at night

[MyBeloved]

Hi MNHQ

Last night there were several threads posted by a woman-hating troll. It took a good few hours before it was taken down and the troll banned.

My feeling is that if there had been a salaried moderator on duty, the threads would have been removed sooner. This troll was also privately messaging at least one poster.

So, could MNHQ please look at paying trained moderators to cover the night shift - which is really when most of this trolling happens?

[CrochetBelle]

People have been pointing this out to MNHQ for years.
I'm not sure they've ever clarified why they don't pay for staff at the most risky times.

[MyBeloved]

Oh, I didn't realise this had been raised before. Would be good to understand the rationale behind MNHQ's decision. I personally think nights are when paid staff are most needed!

[OlennasWimple]

I think their argument is that the current system works well, so no need to change it....

[GingerbreadMa]

So long as the volunteers keep volunteering they wont bother paying anyone

[Coconutspongexo]

They cannot honestly believe their current system works.. surely??

[CremeFresh]

How do
You become a moderator ?

[LornaMumsnet]

Hi there,

We can see that the NW hid two of the threads in question entirely but that on one of them only the OP was hidden which was an error rather than deliberate.

Our busiest periods by far and away are from 8am-11pm and we focus our moderating resource then. The Nightwatch pick things up after outside of those hours, which is actually not very often. They are able to hide threads and generally do a fabulous job when called upon.

If we had an 'official' mod overnight, they'd be rarely used and we'd be shifting resource from the busier shifts, which seems a bit counterintuitive.

We do of course keep an eye on report levels at different times of the day and will keep an open mind on whether it would make sense to change things.

Thanks for raising it and apologies for the oversight.

[BeyondAssignation]

Just being nosey Lorna, do you compare troll posts by number or % of posts with those in the day?

I'm wondering if it seems there are more at night, as there is less general traffic - making the % look higher in comparison with the daytime? But by number it is fewer than the day, so then it isn't worth the extra moderation?

[OlennasWimple]

Lorna - do you notice any difference in the type of troll-y posts at different times of day?

It seems to me - but of course I don't know! - that daytime trolls tend to be the "my DH doesn't like DS doing ballet" or "I only have two eggs to last until Xmas" type posts, but at night we get the MRA invasions (or other hateful stuff) and the stuff that is actually distressing to read rather than just running the risk of being goaded into responding

[CrochetBelle]

Why does night time moderation have to mean shifting resources from day time shifts? Surely with the profit MN make, extra moderators is attainable.

[Cavender]

I agree with Oleanna the kinds of trolling we see in the middle of the night are often appalling.

I live in the USA so I’m often reading MN between 2-5am UK time (my evening). It does often seem to take more than an hour to take stuff down by which point the troll has had their fun.