A question about Mod notes

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1

I recently was justifiably awarded a Mod note, (no dispute about that here) and the moderator included fine print saying “nothing on your permanent record.” On the other hand, in another thread about another poster, a different moderator referred to looking up their warnings and mod notes. So apparently at least some mod notes are recorded for moderators to view, as part of a poster’s record? Is this variable depending on circumstances, i.e. at the noting moderator’s choice?

I’ve had a few notes over the years, but no warnings. I sort of want to know how clean my slate really is.

2

The modnotes are not formally recorded the way Warnings are. Warnings stand out on your profile and we create an entry detailing every warnings. There is the in thread Warning, the PM of the warning, a User note is generated by the system and a 1 post thread on the Moderation forum for every warning since Discourse went live in June of 2020.

For modnotes, we can go digging by looking at how many flags were accepted rather than rejected and then we can link to the accepted flagged posts and see what the reply from a moderator was (the Moderator Note).

So generally speaking a few modnotes mean nothing, but if we see a pattern emerging we can go digging and see if more needs to be said or if modnotes were being ignored, a lot.

I don’t know of any perceived pattern in your case but if you caused a lot of trouble in Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share as an example, the MPSIMS mods might have made mental notes about you that I’m not aware of. Some posters are flagged and mod noted a lot for certain habits. Usually the moderators become aware of this issue.

I can easily check and see you have no warning since go-live.

ETA: I just changed that template so the “nothing on your permanent record.” is now gone. It was something I did many years ago and had largely stopped using myself. It was meant to be mildly humorous and reflect the fact that on their own, modnotes don’t add up. Permanent record was a school related thing in case the reference is not understood.

3

Giving my POV on mod notes with that sub-text involved, I normally use it for two main reasons.

First, if I’m giving out something of a mod-nudge, most often if the thread is heading into an extended period of off topic joking or a hijack. Mostly to distinguish between a real “guidance” situation, and where I may name one or more posters that are most caught up - because I want it to be clear that they hadn’t done anything precisely wrong, but that it was, again, guidance, nothing against them specifically.

Second, I use it when posters who are normally great have a one-off moment of excess anger on a subject, a specific poster, or something else that’s very abnormal for them. At which point I’m trying to make it clear it’s that specific post that’s a problem, not a general concern.

@What_Exit is correct, that removing the second clause is for the best, because it’s not 100% accurate, but for me, myself, and I…

I only look at historical mod notes if there’s a flag with a poster and my mind says “Didn’t I/We just tell them to stop this last week/month/etc.?” And I go back and see that A) yup, they’ve been given 3+ notes on the issue, and now we need to have a talk or B) I’m conflating the actions by a different poster, and should go ahead and give the benefit of the doubt.

So again, in general, I don’t consider a one off mod note to be an issue. When you have multiple mod-notes on the same/similar issues, especially if you’re already pulled an official warning for the same, then, yes, it’s part of the pattern.

That’s how mod notes inform my judgement, hope that helps @Roderick_Femm.

4

Did any of the vBulletin ones carry over? I got one about a year before the switchover, I might recall seeing it a couple of times, maybe, in the vB interface, but I cannot find it now; maybe the mod in question rescinded it?

5

Warnings yes but in a difficult way to find. Modnotes basically no and honestly at this point don’t mean much.

6

The system does let us see how many flags were accepted, but that’s a really meaningless number. That could be the poster flagging their own post to say, “i think this thread is going off the rails” or a wordle answer that someone forgot to spoiler. Or heck, a poster flagging their own post because they messed up some formatting and requested the mods help fix that.

Obviously, none of those lead to further consequences.

(Well, i guess if you posted unspoilered wordle posts day after day…)

The enormous majority of mod notes fade into obscurity without anyone ever looking at them again. You pretty much need to have enough of them about the same kind of thing for the mods be annoyed that you aren’t listening to those notes before anyone would go try to dig them up and sort through them to see if there was objectively a pattern there

7

Thanks for the explanations all. I appreciate it.