# Continuing a Discussion Against Mod Instructions **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 3, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468 "2019-07-03T19:30:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/61 "2019-07-10T18:17:11Z")
If I am going to be required to maintain two accounts I’m going to demand my salary be doubled. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/62 "2019-07-10T18:42:52Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > If I am going to be required to maintain two accounts I’m going to demand my salary be doubled. Doubled? I’ll triple it right now even if you still remain one account. \ I’m Daddy Freakin Warbucks and I’ll make it rani!!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/63 "2019-07-10T18:46:12Z")
> [@kopek](#): > > I’m Daddy Freakin Warbucks and I’ll make it rani!!! > > 😃 Could you make mine Rice-A-Rani, please? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/64 "2019-07-10T22:19:13Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m happy with any mod discipline happening in private, it’s a thankless enough job without adding public humiliation into it (and I say this as a poster who is no fan of most of the moderation here) I think the issue is “mod discipline” should be limited to acting as a mod, but if they are acting as a poster they should get “poster discipline”. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/65 "2019-07-11T00:31:17Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > That wasn’t an explanation for why something is the way it is, rather it was a statement of fact… Except that it was in response to a direct request for an explanation. mmm ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/66 "2019-07-11T12:33:14Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I think the issue is “mod discipline” should be limited to acting as a mod, but if they are acting as a poster they should get “poster discipline”. They generally do. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/67 "2019-07-11T13:43:37Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Except that it was in response to a direct request for an explanation. It was in response to Saint Cad’s question about whether the policy applied to both moderators acting as moderators or acting as posters. As Bone said, it was just a statement of fact, not an explanation of why. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I think the issue is “mod discipline” should be limited to acting as a mod, but if they are acting as a poster they should get “poster discipline”. We tried it that way and it didn’t work very well. This is why the policy is what it is. It’s not because we have always done it that way. We haven’t. It’s because we tried it the other way and it didn’t work. The issue you run into if you do it that way is that moderators are, in a way, always moderators. Even though what we say as just a regular poster is just supposed to be our opinions, anything we say is still viewed as something a moderator said. The end result of all of this is that even when we are posting as regular posters, we still end up being held to a higher standard. The classic example that really clarifies this is a Pit thread. I don’t post in the Pit and pretty much never have, even before I was a moderator, so this is purely a hypothetical, but let’s say I wanted to Pit someone. For any other regular user, that’s fine, but if I did it, even if I was posting a Pit rant against someone as a regular user, it would always be that I, a moderator, posted a Pit rant against someone. If I then moderated that user later, everyone could point to that Pit rant and say that it shows bias against that user. We are not a hired staff. We do not only exist to moderate, like the moderators of some other message boards do. Moderators are chosen out of the ranks of regular posters, and we actively participate as posters in the forums that we moderate. But even when we participate as posters, everyone knows who we are. We are always moderators, in a sense, even when we aren’t moderating. This is why “poster discipline” doesn’t work. It’s one of those things that sounds like a good idea, but when you actually try to do it that way, you find out that it causes more problems than it fixes. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/68 "2019-07-22T23:17:42Z")
I don’t want to start a new thread about this, and this thread appears to be not-unduly dissimilar to a situation in which a moderator made a Moderating remark to me that’s close enough to an instruction to pass. To fend off accusations of discussing moderation outside this folder, I place this reply here (and will link to it in the original thread: ) > [@Rick and Morty -- the new animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/583): > > **[Moderating]** > > I don’t know where you’re getting that from, but wherever it is, put it back. **Bo** in no way said or implied that your edits were a “personal assault”. This post right here, though, just might be. I don’t see how this: > [@Rick and Morty -- the new animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/575): > > ETA: Nice edits while I was typing my post. …could be interpreted as anything other than sarcasm. Sarcasm often results from a desire to strike back over what has been perceived as a personal insult. Your perceptions are all that matter in this situation, though, so I will withdraw “personal assault” as an overstatement of what appeared to me to be someone who felt miffed by the fact that an edit was made, being nasty about it. I can’t say that Bo’s post appeared to be a dispassionate acknowledgement of having posted before an edit was made, though. [The thread’s relevant posts are 574, 575, 580, and 583, which is the moderator’s post– [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21762925&postcount=583](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21762925&postcount=583) [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=713717&page=29](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=713717&page=29) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/69 "2019-07-23T00:00:11Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I don’t want to start a new thread about this, and this thread appears to be not-unduly dissimilar to a situation in which a moderator made a Moderating remark to me that’s close enough to an instruction to pass. Okay. And what you want the mods to do about it? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/70 "2019-07-23T00:07:15Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Okay. And what you want the mods to do about it? Repent! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/71 "2019-07-23T00:15:03Z")
He just told you to cool it. That’s all. Not a warning, not even a mod note. > [@Rick and Morty -- the new animated show from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rick-and-morty-the-new-animated-show-from-dan-harmon-and-justin-roiland/679380/578): > > I get that you hate Jerry. (Also that you apparently feel that edits made while you are typing constitute a personal assault on you. That doesn’t strike you as a rather self-involved reaction? At all?) > … Remember that scene in Goodfellas in the bar, the shoeshine box scene? Right before whatshisface gets pummelled, Deniro tells him: You insulted him a little bit. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/72 "2019-07-23T00:22:55Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > He just told you to cool it. That’s all. Not a warning, not even a mod note. He wanted to vent that the other person was being jerky, pointed it out, and had a mod blame _him_. I can relate. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/73 "2019-07-23T00:31:43Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > He wanted to vent that the other person was being jerky, pointed it out, and had a mod blame _him_. I can relate. In that neighborhood. I felt the moderator had missed some essential facts. If the guy I was interacting with had posted > [@](#): > > ETA: missed your edit …obviously I wouldn’t have said anything about it. But since that person posted, instead: > [@](#): > > ETA: Nice edits while I was typing my post. …I thought it worth noting that the sarcasm didn’t exactly help the argument he’d been making about (wait for it) _Rick and Morty_. I posted here because I wanted to comment on the whole thing, and this is the place to do it. Maybe this wasn’t the ideal thread (and if so I apologize). On the most recent topic under discussion in said thread: the first message board on which I was a regular was similar in size to this one, and they did have the policy of having moderators post under a different name when they were just shooting the breeze with the other regulars. There’s something to be said for that, particularly when arguments would arise over anime or politics or what-have-you. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/74 "2019-07-23T00:33:32Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Repent! At a minimum, hair shirts and self-flagellation. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/75 "2019-07-23T00:45:17Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > …I thought it worth noting that the sarcasm didn’t exactly help the argument he’d been making about (wait for it) _Rick and Morty_. FWIW, you are not alone in reading that as accusing you of deliberately pulling some sort of dirty trick by editing your post. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/76 "2019-07-24T01:00:00Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > FWIW, you are not alone in reading that as accusing you of deliberately pulling some sort of dirty trick by editing your post. Thanks----I didn’t _think_ I was misinterpreting, but you never know. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/77 "2019-07-24T03:23:15Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > We tried it that way and it didn’t work very well. This is why the policy is what it is. It’s not because we have always done it that way. We haven’t. It’s because we tried it the other way and it didn’t work. > > The issue you run into if you do it that way is that moderators are, in a way, always moderators. Even though what we say as just a regular poster is just supposed to be our opinions, anything we say is still viewed as something a moderator said. > > The end result of all of this is that even when we are posting as regular posters, we still end up being held to a higher standard. > > The classic example that really clarifies this is a Pit thread. I don’t post in the Pit and pretty much never have, even before I was a moderator, so this is purely a hypothetical, but let’s say I wanted to Pit someone. For any other regular user, that’s fine, but if I did it, even if I was posting a Pit rant against someone as a regular user, it would always be that I, a moderator, posted a Pit rant against someone. If I then moderated that user later, everyone could point to that Pit rant and say that it shows bias against that user. > > We are not a hired staff. We do not only exist to moderate, like the moderators of some other message boards do. Moderators are chosen out of the ranks of regular posters, and we actively participate as posters in the forums that we moderate. But even when we participate as posters, everyone knows who we are. We are always moderators, in a sense, even when we aren’t moderating. > > This is why “poster discipline” doesn’t work. It’s one of those things that sounds like a good idea, but when you actually try to do it that way, you find out that it causes more problems than it fixes. I agree that mods should generally be held to higher standards that regular posters and when a mod violates those higher standards, then confidential discipline should be imposed. But your response did not answer the question of when mods violate a rule that is generally applicable to all posters (say a personal attack in a GD thread) that those violations should not be treated like “poster violations.” It is like how judges and lawyers are held to a higher duty to the legal system. If we violate one of those higher duties, that is investigated by the state bar which has a system of protections built in so that a spurious allegation is not public knowledge until proven. But if I get a speeding ticket or a DUI or something, then that violation is processed through the normal channels just like John Q. Public did it. As others have said, it gives the impression that moderators are free to violate the poster rules, when it is not the case. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/78 "2019-07-27T09:54:59Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > FWIW, you are not alone in reading that as accusing you of deliberately pulling some sort of dirty trick by editing your post. Thirded. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/79 "2019-07-27T23:48:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Thirded. Thanks; we all like a bit of support for the idea that our perceptions fall within normal parameters, from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2019, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468/80 "2019-07-28T03:13:02Z")
I don’t care if mod sanctions are carried out privately (though I was a mod on a board where we applied the same rules to mods as we did to posters, just as publicly, and it worked fine). But - forgive me if i missed it - but I have not seen any statement from the mods as to whether **tomndebb’s** behavior was considered a-okay or not. Personally, I’d be happy with a statement to the effect of, “it’s not appropriate for moderators to use their powers to disappear their posts the way **tomndebb** did. This board’s policy is to handle infractions by moderators privately, so that’s all we’ll be saying on this topic.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continuing-a-discussion-against-mod-instructions/836468.md?page=5)