Address repeated off-topic content in #career-discussion

[minalike]

What feature are you proposing?

Possible changes:

1. Move the OFF-TOPIC/GENERAL category to be above the DISCUSSION category This was my initial proposal but the caveat is that we end up highlighting off-topic channels on what is ultimately a Python-topical server

2. Move #career-discussion from the DISCUSSION to the TOPICAL CHAT/HELP category Joe said he would consider this option to attempt preserving #career-discussion channel quality. However I fear that #advanced-discussion which is next in line under #python-general will suffer as a result

3. Split #python-general into 2 channels #python-general-0 and #python-general-1 Maybe it's crazy, but maybe it will make conversations in pygen easier to follow since it's such a rapid channel. If we feel that #python-general overflow prevents its nearby channels from staying on track, then maybe expanding #python-general into 2 channels will mitigate that effect. Potential caveat is yet another channel to moderate.

What is your justification for the proposed feature?

While all channels on the server likely suffer from the occasional off topic conversations that derail the scope of the channel, I feel it may be more severe within the #career-discussion channel. Its proximity to the highly active #python-general and its high visibility (being high up in the channel list) may be cause of this.

While it's nice to highlight that as a Python Discord we have a channel focused on Python-related careers, we should consider the potential payoffs of implementing one or more of the above proposals

In my observations, community members are often informing others to stay on topic for the channel and pointing them to !resources or #how-to-get-help but it's pretty much an endless cycle.

Previous #community-meta discussions: one, two

[dawnofmidnight]

For suggestion 3, I don't think it'll be used all that much. The same way ot0 is used way more than the other two, I'm guessing something similar will happen. But I agree, it could help with multiple discussions going on.

[jb3]

We don't have a need for another python general channel, especially with the release of threads and soon the enabling of threads across portions of the server activity in a second channel will be minimal.

As mention, I don't like option 1 because it detracts from the actual nature of what we are, a Python server, I like having our general, careers and advanced chats all before miscellaneous chatter.

My preferred option is 2, though even that has some cons.

We could also add option 4 which is to reopen the org issue for deprecating the careers channel if we can't find a good solution here.

[minalike]

Please no option 4, my aim is to preserve or improve on the careers-discussion channel, not get rid of it. Since there's no rush to this issue, we could indeed see what effect the introduction of threads to pygen will have

[jb3]

It is an option we had on the table a while ago - so we should at least talk about why the measures put in place at that time failed, relevant internal ticket is python-discord/organisation#338, it's worth reading the discussions that ticket ended in.

[lemonsaurus]

My input: I think option 2 (and option 4) are both reasonable suggestions, I don't like option 1 and I really dislike option 3.

[SebastiaanZ]

My fear is that option 2 will hurt the #advanced-discussion channel, although I also accept that using that argument is flawed. The purpose of the #career-discussion is not to be a buffer to improve another channel. It probably comes from me having a stronger desire to have an area in the community where more advanced Python topics are the main subject of conversation than a careers discussion channel. (It's not that I'm dismissing the career channel, but I really want to have a channel like advanced-discussion to work in our community.)

[antoniouaa]

Two cents from a random member. I like #career-discussion. I benefited from it and I would like others to benefit from it in the same way.

Careers related discussion channels aren't that common in the wild, most tech servers I'm in avoid them because they are hard to moderate and are usually high noise channels, which is understandable. We don't want to create more work for you and neglect other necessary duties in the server.

My suggestion would be to get some more moderators in the team and have them focus on keeping channels like #career-discussion and #advanced-discussion clean from spam and offtopic chatter using more aggressive, active moderation. In fact, dementati#4691 has been very effective in moderating these two channels recently (especially #career-discussion).

I doubt this suggestion would be popular with the staff, which is why I was hesitant in voicing it, but if the alternative is to lose the only career's channel I have access to, what the heck.

[HassanAbouelela]

It’s always fine to voice your suggestions.

We typically never want to approach recruitment on the server in terms of “we’re recruiting you to moderate x, y, and a”, because it would just feel like a burden to the mods that we recruit. If you’re expected to moderate a specific channel, most people would feel the need to make sure it’s moderated, so it won’t reflect poorly on them. This can lead to boredom, and burnout.

That only leaves recruiting from people that are already active within the channel, but that has different problems, namely that people’s interests change over time, and we have very high barriers of entry when it comes to recruitment.

[jb3]

We've discussed this in the last couple of staff meetings and concluded that traffic within the careers channel has improved with slightly increased moderation presence, so we don't think there is a need to action this right now.

As always if people notice off topic chat in careers they are welcome to bring this up to the ModMail bot and a Moderator will intervene to restore the conversation to the intended topic.