Abuse of moderator powers

What should I do when a moderator abuses his powers?

In a particular discussion I have stated my own point of view. The moderator in question does not agree with my opinion. Fair enough, that’s his right, it’s a free internet. But instead of arguing his case he has used his moderator powers to silence me.

First of all, he let us say misunderstood my words, and with moderator hat on issued a warning for something that I had not actually said. A warning that I felt was unjustified since I hadn’t done the thing I was being warned about.

So, I politely pointed out that he was mistaken. In response I got a personal attack from him, and I was told to sghut up about an opinion that he personally doesnot agree with.

So, I don’t want to accrue moderator warnings if I can help it. I don’t think this one should ever have been issued the warning in the first place. I want the warning to be officially withdrawn and struck from the record.

I feel I have a right to speak my opinion on this board. In the thread in question I have been silenced by implicit threats of further moderator action if I continue to say what I think.

Finally, I think the mod in question is very much guilty of Being A Jerk, and perhaps should have his own actions looked at by the mods.

So what should I do about it?

the moderator in question is being a jerk

Link, please?

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=403756

Report the offending post.

E-mail an administrator.

Open a Pit thread (the Pit is for administrative complaints.)

Get a life? Seriously dude…direct email is a good thing.

Thanks for the link, Revenant Threshold.

Peter, I didn’t read any of the moderator messages in that thread as personal attacks. You (and others, I should add) were being chided not for your opinions, but for the snarky and/or nasty way you were presenting them. But, as Contrapuntal noted, maybe you should take it to the Pit.

[Administrator Hat On]:
Speaking in general, if you have a complaint about the actions of a moderator, there are three approaches that are likely to be effective:

(1) Contact an administrator (or several, in case the one you contact is on vacation that week) by email, be specific please about your complaint and the specific posts. Frankly, we don’t want to wade through a four-page thread to try to figure out what/where your complaint may be. Starts us off on the wrong foot. We will investigate any such claims.

(2) Start a Pit thread. Again, please be as specific as you can. If you just want a general rant, that’s fine for the Pit, but probably won’t result in much in the way of Official Response. If you have a specific complaint, we’ll investigate. Of course, one interesting aspect of posting in the Pit is that others can see your complaint and tell you that they think you’re wrong (usually) or right (sometimes.) You gotta be willing to face that. I know, any time a cop stops you for speeding, it’s the vicious, nasty, stupid cop who’s at fault.

Using the REPORT button will likely be ineffective, since the REPORT only goes to the Moderators of that particular forum. So, if you have a complaint about a Great Debates moderator (for example). using the REPORT button means that the GD moderators will be the ones who see your complaint.

We do take complaints about moderators seriously, and we do look into them. Moderators are, of course, human beans subject to the frailties and foibles thereto appertaining.

OK, end of generalities. In this specific instance, Peter, I have read through the thread, and I note that two (arguably three) moderators told you to cool down the personal insults. Your response seems to have been even more personal insults. You’ve objected that one of them mis-read your comment about “whining” as being directed at a moderator and you demanded an apology. Your objection is pretty much irrelevant. It doesn’t matter which poster you accused of whining. It wasn’t the comment about the other moderator that you were being chastised for, but your continued, repetitive, constant negative comments about several other posters, that were across the “no personal insult” line.

You should know. You have so much experience in that category.

Whoa! Personal foul there, Musicat. This is not allowed in ATMB.

If you have a personal beef you need to take it to the Pit. Or email. Or outside. Not like this.

Do not do this again in ATMB.

Please accept my profuse apologies. I thought we were in the pit. :frowning:

And why aren’t we? The BBQ Pit: “This is the place for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB.” If this thread isn’t a complaint about the administration, I don’t know what is.

I am also very surprised that a thread labeled “Abuse of moderator powers,” which is quite clearly a complaint about moderation, and which specifically calls a moderator a jerk (even though it is thinly disguised as a question about message board policy) has been allowed to stay in this forum even after two adminstrators have seen it. Is there some rationale for not moving it (especially since Peter Morris appears to be the offending party here?)

Colibri and Musicat

Both of you should recognize that Peter Morris has a valid, simple question.
And the answer was given by C K Dexter Haven.

Both of these posts were civil.

There is no need for the pit for those two posts.
And if complaints were back at ATMB, where they used to be, perhaps dicussions of board policy would stay civil.

I think actually, it’s time to give up on the pit entirely. For all posts. The board doesn’t need all the harsh personal attacks anywhere. Leave that stuff to the tackier free boards.

Sorry but you don’t have a “right” to jack shit on this board. It’s a private entity and the moderators can be as capricious as they want to be, not that they were being so in your case.

I’ve been warned a handful of times and one of them I thought was blatantly unfair. Such is life. The Mod in question was charged by management to make those calls and that’s how it is here.

The Pit is the appropriate forum for complaints about Moderator actions, whether the complaints are expressed politely or expressed in flames. That’s the appropriate place for this thread, as well; I left it here out of convenience, and because part of the question was “what’s the best way to lodge a complaint” (which is ATMB.) Those were the “generalities” that I dealt with in my answer; the specific complaint is, I think, incidental.

According to Pliny: I understand your feelings, but the Pit serves a useful function. When people absolutely need to vent, it’s there to allow venting. There are times when you really want to tell another poster what you think of her, and the Pit allows that… and keeps discussions in the other forums reasonable polite and well-mannered. So, it remains.

Dex, isn’t that a bit of a contradiction there? I would have preferred to write to you myself rather than have you read through the four page thread. I think that there may be certain specifics that you might have missed.

So, can I send you an email, specifying what I object to? Would you be able to consider it impartially, given that you already have an opinion on the subject?

Incidentally, everyone, aren’t you kind of making an assumption about which thread I mean? Is it possible that I was talking about a different thread? I certainly didn’t specify which one. This was a deliberate choice. I wanted your advice on who to contact, not your opinions on the matter.

I’m not going to discuss the rest of your post (it happens I disagree, but that’s a point where reasonable men can agree to disagree civilly). But I want to take issue with what you say here.

Yes, there are some truly vile attitudes and language cast about in the Pit. And it has more trainwrecks per month than a high-speed hairpin curve railway track in the Rockies.

But I’ve noted bemusedly that far too often for chance, when there is opportunity to drain the venom and vitriol, what follows on that is an opportunity for the opposing sides to actually converse civilly on the subject which resulted in the difference, instead of posting competing monologues in GD or GQ. This is a virtue which is rarely noted, but IMO the saving grace of the Pit.

(And there’s always room, it seems, for a measured, irenic comment that perhaps the extreme attitudes are going too far, and that there is in fact a happy medium.)

Which immediately gets you shot at by both sides.

Personally, I think it would be better closed than moved to the pit - moving it there with him as the OP would put pressure on him to respond (whereas a new pit thread about him would not, at least not so much), and it could turn into a meltdown with bad consequences.

You didn’t specify the thread, although you described what happened and this matches quite closely to the linked GD thread. I can’t imagine why you made the above comment though - if this same thing was happening to you in more than one place at the same time (which I don’t believe it actually is), that would hardly strengthen your case, would it?

He’s right, and you should listen to him. In this instance, the moderators are right. I think you are expecting an extreme adversarial approach from your opponents in the debate, and in your anxiety to get through to them you are crossing the line from assertive to aggressively hostile. Step back, take some deep breaths, enjoy some tea, (or chocolate/bubble bath/whathaveyou) and calm down. Then after you are calm, open a word document, type out your ideas, save them, and go off and de-stress again. Come back and read them once your mind is clear and calm, and see if they are as clear headed as you originally thought. THEN maybe post?