Moderator Guidelines

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Guidelines for moderators

Introduction

  • First, familiarize yourself with the User Submission Guidelines. Refer users to this page when rejecting a submission or when modifying a submission.
  • We try to approve as many submissions as possible. Rejecting submissions may discourage visitors from using website. Always provide a reason for rejecting submissions and offer suggestions for improving the content to meet our standards.
  • Moderators should only deny submissions with content that is plagiarized, incorrect, or extremely biased. Everything else can be altered by the moderator before accepting the submission.
  • This website strives to appeal to internet users that are politically un(der)informed, interested in getting a basic understanding of a topic, but may be averse to a lot of reading. Moderators should make sure the content they approve meets this purpose.
  • Our standardized formats are designed to provide general information about a person/issue/group and their relationship to politics or government. Information should be easy to access and understand. We don't want users to search through long, unorganized entries to find basic information. As such, we discourage using a paragraph format because users are less likely to read long entries with big chunks of text. Our standardized format include predetermined headers and bullets to keep information fair and organized.

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Submission Types

Example: Hillary Clinton Rival Michael Savage

"Then you have Hillary Clinton, the most Godless woman in the Senate, right out of the Marxist playbook..." - The Daily Savage, June 19, 2004.
* Above: This user included information that indicates rivalry between Michael Savage and Hillary Clinton.

  • Issue pages, people pages, group/government pages, people/group issue pages, concepts, and things/objects will require more moderation. Most need to be modified in some way. Here is an example:

Example: Submission

Short Bio

Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International. He writes a regular column for Newsweek, which also appears in Newsweek International and often The Washington Post. He is considered a political moderate.
* Above: This is a good short bio. It reveals why he is important without any extra information.

Long Bio

Fareed Zakaria may be best known for his book, "The Future of Freedom." He has also written "From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role" (Princeton University Press) and is co-editor of "The American Encounter: The United States and the Making of the Modern World" (Basic Books).
* Above: This is good information but it in a paragraph! This needs to be organized below headers.

In 1999, Zakaria was named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" by Esquire Magazine. His award winning October 2001 Newsweek cover story, "Why They Hate Us," was considered highly controversial, because it dared point out some of America's less desirable qualities.
* Above: Also good information, but again, unorganized. This user also doesn't provide sources or links to the articles mentioned. The user should provides sources and clarify WHO considers the article to be "controversial." This sentence sounds slightly bias, "Newsweek cover story, 'Why They Hate Us,' was considered highly controversial, because it dared point out some of America's less desirable qualities." This can be modified to sound neutral.

Example Moderation and Modifications

* <a href="#background">Background</a>
* <a href="#career">Career</a>
* <a href="#governor">Governor</a>
* <a href="#criticism">Criticism</a>
* <a href="#accomplishments">Accomplishments</a>
* <a href="#links">Links</a>

<a name="background"></a>
#Background#

<a name="career"></a>
#Career#

<a name="criticism"></a>
#Criticism#
* Zakaria October 2001 Newsweek cover story, "Why They Hate Us" was considered highly for its critique of the United States. [source="?" link="?"]
* Above: Reworded and added the source link. I asked the user to provide sources in these spots.

<a name="accomplishments"></a>
#Accomplishments#
###Publications###
* _The Future of Freedom_
* _From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role_
* _The American Encounter: The United States and the Making of the Modern World_, (Basic Books), Co-editor
###Recognition###
* In 1999, Zakaria was named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" by Esquire Magazine.[source="?" link="?"]
* Zakaria won an award for his October 2001 Newsweek cover story, "Why They Hate Us." [source="?" link="?"]
* Above: Listed the publications under a subsection of Accomplishments. Made another subsection for awards and recognition. Added source links and asked the user to provide the sources. Removed bias language.

<a name="links"></a>
#Links#

Above: I reformatted the entire entry using our standard format for people pages. Then I pasted the user's work into the sections.

Comments to the user

Thanks for the submission! I reformatted to conform to our submission guidelines. Could you find some sources for this information and edit the source links I added?

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Content

  • Our content standards are outlined on the submission guidelines page.
  • As stated in the submission guidelines, fairness and accuracy are of the utmost importance. Our standardized formats helps to achieve these goals.
  • Issue pages: Issue pages summarize the major issues being debated in American politics. Issue pages should reflect issues surrounding legislation (either introduced or passed), court cases from higher courts, government policies, and citizen initiatives. Issues can be local or national. Examples include State Children's Health Insurance Program, Iraq War Withdrawal, and Animal Welfare. Examples that do not fall under this category are Creationism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and Sustainable Development. These examples are concepts that may influence policy or legislation, but are not actually up for debate. See the issue section of the submission guidelines.
  • People pages: People pages summarize a person's life, career and public perception. It should be apparent how this person is connected to politics or government. If not, ask for evidence of their affiliation. Look at the "People pages / Content" section of the submission guidelines for a list of people that can be added to the database.
  • Groups pages: Group pages provide descriptions of government bodies and other groups affiliated with politics. See the groups section of the submission guidelines.

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Copy/Pasting from other sources

  • One of the most common problems with submissions is that they are copy/pasted straight from Wikipedia or person/group's official website. We deny these submissions unless they are short enough to be modified.
  • How can we tell it is copy/pasted? Take a sentence and plug it into Google. Repeat with another sentence from different part of the submission.
  • How to moderate: Reject the submission and explain we cannot accept copy/pasted submissions. Encourage them to read through the submission guidelines page and resubmit original content. You can explain that, although it may be legal to use that content, we feel that people can go to those other websites if that is the kind of information they are looking for. PB is trying to do something different.

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Formatting Issues

  • The most common problem is formatting. Users will very often submit entires in paragraph format. Moderators can pull out relevant content and reword it to fit the standard format.
  • Another common formatting problem happens when users submit headings that are not different from those in the standard formats. Some additional headings are okay as long as they seem useful in better understanding the basics behind the particular issue/person/group. When this happens, add our standard headings to the page and encourage the user to fill in the information. Delete the extraneous headings and information or integrate it into the standard format.

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Example: Issue- Abortion

The user submits the following headings:
* Methods
* History
* Parents
* Pro Arguments
* Con Arguments
None of these are standard headings. Moderators can move information from Methods, History, and Parents into the Background section in our standard issue format. The Pro/Con Arguments sections can be moved into Debate. Then the moderator can add the rest of our standard headings with some subheadings if needed (Background, Debate, Country Comparison, Recent Legislation/Activity/Developments)

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Bias

  • Language and information in submissions should always be neutral. The wiki pages are not meant to smear or promote people/ideas/groups. They are meant to inform our users.
  • Some submissions may only add arguments for or against an issue, or criticism/praise for a person. In these cases, remove bias language and organize the information under the appropriate headings in our standard formats (i.e. Criticism/Accomplishments, Debate with subsections- Support/Oppose).
  • Spotting bias content:
    1 Look for superlatives and absolutes: "Always," "never," "all," "best," "worst," "greatest."
    2 Look for emotional or language that suggests right/wrong: "Dr. Paul doesn't think the constitution gives the government right to tell us what we can or cannot do with our money." 3 Look for broad or general statements in place of facts: "Dr. Paul doesn't think the government should redistribute wealth." (Ron Paul on Universal Health Care). 4 Look for content that tries to promote a certain idea, website, or campaign. 5 Flattering or unflattering adjectives and adverbs. "This disturbing policy introduced by..."

Example: Rush Limbaugh Issue Page on Welfare Programs

Moderator: Thanks for the submission! I changed the wording in some of these to sound more neutral. For example, you wrote: "Recently, Rush reported on an article detailing the wealth possessed by Americans under the poverty level -- a house, car, television, microwave, etc. Why should anyone feel entitled to tax others to ensure themselves a certain standard of living?" Certainly not ALL Americans under the poverty line own these amenities, so the word "some" was inserted. Posing the last sentence as a question kind of makes it seem like you're trying to convince the reader of Rush's argument. I changed the pronouns to 3rd person to read ". Feel free to resubmit if you disagree with these changes!

Example: Rush Limbaugh Issue Page on Bush Tax Cuts

User: On Bush Tax Cuts, you removed my reference to the documentation that is *always* at the bottom of Rush's home page. Why not provide this reference?

Moderator: The reason I removed the reference to his homepage is because it seemed like a promotion. I figured that anyone who wants to know more about that article could visit his webpage (which you can list in his bio). If you were referencing an independent article or something with a link that would be less obvious than rushlimbaugh.com, then maybe a link would be appropriate. The problem is, a lot of supporters will use this as a forum to promote these peoples' ideas instead of using it as a tool to inform the public. I further modified the welfare programs section to include the name and date of the report you mentioned. It's good to include some info on the things you reference in the future. Thanks for sending me a link!

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Poor Writing

  • Grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and diction all fall under this category.
  • Fix the errors, re-word bad sentences, and approve the submission. No need to tell the user what you modified in this case!

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Sources

  • All submissions should come with sources. Reject submissions that do not provide ample verification.
  • Wikipedia is not an acceptable source. All information from Wikipedia should cite the original source.

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Video and Photo Submissions

  • No inappropriate images.
  • If it video/photo pertains to both Giuliani and Clinton, for example, it has to be added to each of their video/photo pages.
  • A submission may appear in the queue without any visible photo or video. This means that the submission was too large, too small, or an unacceptable file format. You should inform the user.

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Helpful Code

  • Internal Links - All links to websites within PB.com: <a href="http://www.politicalbase.com/issues">Political Base Issues Page</a>
  • External Links - All links to webpages outside of PB.com: <a href="http://www.google.com" target=new>Google is a search engine</a>
  • Anchors - Anchors are links within a webpage. Instead of directing to another webpage, the link directs to an anchor point. For example, at the top of each issue/person/group page, there are links to sections within the webpage. Each link at the top corresponds with an anchor. Links and anchors can go anywhere in a webpage, but links are typically at the top of the page and their corresponding anchors are near the section headings.

Example Anchor/Link Code

<a href="#anchor1">Anchor 1</a>
<a href="#anchor2">Anchor 2</a>
<a href="#anchor3">Anchor 3</a>

<a name="anchor1"></a>
#Title 1#
This is the site for the first anchor.

<a name="anchor2"></a>
#Title 2#
This is the site for the second anchor.

<a name="anchor3"></a>
#Title 3#
This is the site for the third anchor.

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