In response to waffles's request for feature enhancements to the moderator dashboard coloring system:
The context
We have a new moderator dashboard that displays a variety of statistics about moderator activity: number of closures, comments, votes, deletions, and so on. In an apparent effort to call attention to the inequality of moderator activity in any one of those areas, the moderator with the lowest activity for a given metric is colored red, and the moderator with the second lowest activity is colored orange.
The problem
The coloring logic currently doesn't give the benefit of the doubt to moderators, and errs on the side of coloring a statistic. For example:
- When all moderators are tied for a statistic (like at the start of a new day when everyone is at zero), everyone is colored red.
- As a corollary to this, shame coloring is immediate, even when it would be unreasonable to presume a moderator should've had activity (i.e. when the day resets)
- If there are four moderators, and two of them are tied for second place, the two second place people are colored orange.
- If a moderator lags behind the pack by even one point (one closure, one vote, one comment, etc.), they get colored.
The proposal
Make the coloring less sensitive: give moderators the benefit of the doubt when determining if they need to be shamed. Possible alternatives:
- Ties are good, not bad. If two or more moderators are tied for first or second place, they should not be colored.
- Ties shouldn't be exact. If I'm only 10-20% behind the other moderators, my statistic shouldn't get shame coloring.
- Give time for moderators to react. Shame coloring shouldn't be on the daily dashboard, at all. I would hope nobody expects moderating to be a 24/7 job.