Calling all night owls!

[RebeccaMumsnet]

Hi all,

We'd like to recruit some more of you into the Nightwatch, to help out alongside our current night time volunteers.

The Nightwatch are a group of MNetters, many from overseas, who have the power to hide posts or threads of a spammy nature, or posts that overtly break our Talk guidelines.

They can't see or respond to reports, and aren't asked to make judgment calls on stuff like personal attacks, bunfights, troll-hunting and so on; they're simply equipped to deal with the sort of beyond-the-pale posts or images that you - and they! - would normally report to us.

Night watchers don't have to identify themselves, and are under no obligation to be around full-time - it's more a question of popping on the boards as you would do in the course of a normal day's Mumsnetting. We will be drawing up a rota and asking what works for you and what doesn't; if you thought you were likely to be around one night a week, that'd be about perfect.

If you're interested, please post below and we'll mail you with further information. We are looking for a handful of people, and will be looking at the global timezones to help cover as much time as possible, so please don't take it personally if you're not selected: it doesn't mean we love you any less

Or even powercrazy

Better to just pay people to do a proper job overnight with all the responsibility and ability to ban and delete etc. Nightwatch is never going to be a patch on that.

Someone trolling is not going to be deterred by their thread/s being hidden.

If they're trolling in the first place they'll just start another thread.

You could get conflicts of interest, poster hiding a thread they were on because they didn't like the way it was turning out or didn't support their own POV. Or hiding those of people they have had problems with in the past. Make it a paid position and moderate properly.

You are aware there already is a Nightwatch that MN is just recruiting additional folk for? I don't think there's been any issues with power crazed Njghtwatchers running amok through the (virtual) corridors if MN....

If there were they wouldn't exactly broadcast it would they>

You could get conflicts of interest, poster hiding a thread they were on because they didn't like the way it was turning out or didn't support their own POV. Or hiding those of people they have had problems with in the past.

They'd be defrocked by lunchtime surely?

Look, MOST threads that need hiding overnight are perverts, really obvious trolls (big overlap with those two groups) or inventive spammers or some other galringly inappropriate blow-in nonsense.

Occasionally, there's also a big bunfight that would need hiding, but not often.

It's really not the same as day-time moderating that MNHQ do and 99% of the time it's obvious to everyone what needs hiding.

You need to pull a few allnighters and see for yourself

I was just trying to remember what sparked it off. Wasn't it a willy picture incident?

Really? My memory. I remember being disappointed when I clicked on the thread announcing it, that it was nothing to do with the Sarah Waters book. So there's a useful recollection

The gullible few: "Pick me!"

Majority: "It should be a paid position"

MNHQ: "Thanks for all the lovely volunteers!"

Justine has made it quite clear that paid overnight staff is NOT an option at the current time. Zombie has bookmarked her first post on this thread so it should go straight to that post.

Given that it is her choice and decision to continue with the Night Watch system, Zombie doesn't think those who are willing to offer their time should be referred to as The gullible few. It is in fact rather insulting.

Another one who believes this should be a paid position(s).

Charities need volunteers. Hospitals too, even emergency services sometimes. Not private companies with £££ in the bank. That's really cheeky imo.

Why 'gullible' Anne?

It took longer for me to write an OP in Nightwatch (and report the thread and suggest on the thread that it was time to drop it) on Sunday morning than it would have taken for me to hit a 'hide' button.

I was there anyway and I'd rather not have had the experience of watching all that play out. It's quite a helpless feeling.

Lots more NWers solves the problem. Each NWer is unlikely to have to do anything at all more than once every couple of weeks at the most. There's no sensible way of paying a large force like that. You could do it on a piecework basis but that would be so sporadic it would be laughable.

If people feel strongly that night moderation should be paid, then maybe FT, full-range-of-powers moderation overnight is the answer.

Most big internet forums have volunteer mods. They usually have much more power than the Nightwatch (and are therefore much more like to become the centre of drama themselves).

I can totally understand why MN think that paying someone to sit around all night with, mostly, nothing to do but ban a couple of spammers is a waste of their money.

Sometimes volunteering is a better option for people than taking a paid role. Those with health problems/disabilities meaning they are unable to work can sometimes take on a volunteer role and feel they are making a difference and contribute to society.

Or looking at it another way Hat, it could be the perfect paid position for someone disabled or ill who are perfectly capable of carrying out a role like that. Why shouldn't they earn a wage too?

Most forums use volunteers, fine. Are there any other forums as big and covering such sensitive subjects as MN? I can't think of one.

I don't know where I stand on whether it should be paid or a volunteer role. I can see why they wouldn't want to pay if we're talking about very little work to be done. On the other hand, I've often seen trolls who don't start their own threads but comment on a fair number of sensitive threads and post one post of disablism/racism/sexism/rape apology, etc. and those threads don't all need hiding as that poster would just move to the next thread and was never planning on engaging with responses anyway. They just want maximum offence to be made over a short period of time.

MN obviously get less reports over night than in the day. There are less posters online overnight (UK time) as most posters are UK based and asleep. But report to post ratio must still be fairly high? Possibly higher than daytime hours?

And, finally, I'm always awake overnight but I won't be a volunteer. And I'm sure nobody wants me as night watch either. I'm hoping that reads as jokey as I mean it.

Because, Kinky, for some of the number of hours we'd have to do to equal what we get in benefits isn't worth the payback we'd get in terms of fatigue or increased pain etc (or the risk of having a run of bad days and the impact that would have - possible loss of job etc)

hat that varies. It's something I could do and something you couldn't (in terms of pay vs benefits etc). There's no right or wrong really, we are all different. Our abilities are all different. I won't do the role (and wouldn't be accepted if I applied) but if you look on purely an hours basis then I could do the job despite not being able to many other jobs. I would assume that I'm not alone in that and that others are suitable for this role and it would help them. I think paid is better overall.

I'd be happy to help. I'm Sydney based and have a bad mn habit during the day. I've seen a few situations get out of control during the UK's nighttime, and wished that I could have done something.

"Justine has made it quite clear that paid overnight staff is NOT an option at the current time."

It is of course an option. One they don't want to take.

MNHQ - You know how you like to talk about stuff being "in the spirit of this site"? Paying MNers who work for you would very much be in the spirit of MN, supporting them as they are supporting you.

Please consider it.

seems odd that you report to NW and nothing happens

I agree that most forums that use volunteers are tiny.

This isn't a specialist, niche forum for I dunno, quilters, mountain bikers or something. It's VAST. Many of the small forums struggle as it is without paid mods.

It's like getting volunteers to run Tesco customer service or something. It's a bit silly.