So most of us “old timers” now have been on kbin for almost a month (or more), and kbin has been around for longer. And… we’ve started to have an issue and I’m not sure if y’all have noticed: early on some people went around to claim some magazines either with the intent to pass it off later, or simply to squat and ideally build it up. But the end result was: the person who made the magazine stopped using kbin, or hasn’t been active in weeks at the least.

Given this, many “big” or “good name” magazines are now squatted with no actual moderation. Of course it’s possible to just make a new magazine with a similar name, but that’s not always great/ideal. Reddit has a system for dealing with this: a subreddit in which you can request a subreddit to be “seized” if the owner is inactive for a length of time and it ends up unmoderated. That way, dead/inactive subs held by inactive accounts can be repurposed either to revitalize the moderation, or to rebrand the content into something more popular.

Personally I have run into this issue on kbin. Namely with the /m/Sanrio magazine. @Sanrio is the full name. The issue? I’m really the only active user posting in there, and it appears I’ve been added as a moderator. However, both the users above me in the mod list have been inactive for 3 weeks. And I do not have access to the mod controls of the magazine. It appears that kbin lacks any sort of way to properly seize the magazine so that it may be properly moderated in the future.

So it ends up being the case that either: I start a new sanrio magazine and just start over with a less impactful name. Or I continue posting in this sanrio magazine, and just hope that my limited mod abilities are good enough to moderate any issues (I haven’t checked removing posts yet). Not a good solution in either case.

I know quite a “short impactful name” magazines are this same way. Seized early on, then the user stopped posting on kbin and are inactive. I think most of the ‘land grabbing’ has now been done as everyone has settled in, but the “ruins” remain.

Can we get a system in place to properly reallocate magazines to more active users? I feel like bugging ernest about this every single time will just lead to larger backlogs and a waste of his time (as I’ve stumbled upon dozens of these at least).

An automated solution could be: if a magazine has not had any posts despite being created weeks ago, then auto-delete it. If a magazine’s owner has not posted for weeks/months, then allow the magazine to be “claimed” by someone who is more active; perhaps someone who has frequently posted in the magazine?

Example:

Magazine created 3 weeks ago, by an account that last posted 3 weeks ago. It has no posts. -> auto delete the magazine.

Magazine created 3 weeks ago, by an account that last posted 3 weeks ago. It has recent posts. -> allow top 10% of posters to “claim” the magazine and become the owner.

Magazine created 3 weeks ago, by an account that last posted 3 weeks ago. It has posts, but all 3 weeks ago. -> allow anyone to claim it.

Magazine created any time, by an account still active and posting within the week. -> don’t allow any seizing/claiming of magazine.

These numbers are just randomly picked, naturally they can be whatever ernest and the community feels are best. The idea here simply being that dead magazines by inactive accounts don’t sit as dead/inactive, but rather can be claimed again and revitalized. Also, it goes without saying but magazines from other instances shouldn’t be effected by this (let them manage things themselves).

Thoughts? I just find it annoying that many magazines that would otherwise be attracting users end up unmoderated due to the influx of users a few weeks ago who claimed them and then left. Finding dead magazines that are forever unmoderated is worse than them not existing imo. Yeah?