A question seems to be arising as a strong element of several complaints recently. I do not wish to get into specific examples listed in recent threads, as I fear that will just continue to poke the sore points and not lead to any transmission of information. Rather, I would like to focus this thread on a specific policy question, thus:
How are moderators moderated? What happens when a Moderator breaks a rule? It is obvious that when regular posters break rules, they get notes/warnings/banning by moderators. If a member sees a rules violation or suspect post, they can report the post for moderator attention.
What about if a moderator either breaks a rule, or else tramples the spirit of a rule? What recourse is there? What actions are taken?
Does reporting the post do any good? How? It’s just going to notify the moderator that somebody saw their comment.
Is there some discussion, perhaps reprimand, that occurs on the private moderator forum?
It seems to me some of the recent heat is largely due to a feeling of a double standard, that moderators are free to violate rules and don’t get admonished for it. Maybe there’s a sentiment that mods should be disciplined in private, but if so, that feeds the sense that moderators can get away with things because without public discipline, there is no indication that the board administration takes moderator behavior with the same scrutiny as other member behavior. And that breeds sore feelings.
Does anyone in the administration care to comment on this?
I really would like to keep the generic complaints and the blanket accusations out of this thread. Please keep this a civil discussion of policy, not a flame fest.
There’s usually a great deal of discussion that goes on in the email loop, but not in the forum. And most forums have at least two moderators, so another mod will see the report.
Posters can also email an admin or another mod with a complaint. We do take these complaints very seriously…if the person isn’t a habitual complainer. There are some posters who have a hard-on for a particular moderator, or for the whole moderating staff. After the 20th time that Poster Y bitches about Moderator Z, and we’ve all looked at the first 19 complaints, we start to feel that perhaps Poster Y just doesn’t like Moderator Z, period. And needs a new hobby.
Usually, if a complaint is found to be valid, the moderator at least gets scolded and told not to do it again. If the mod continues to do this, or if the mod does other things, then s/he might find that s/he’s a regular poster again. In at least one instance, we had to ban the ex-mod for continuing to stir up shit on this message board.
In before sixty people pretend to be disgusted by your attitude…
I have a question. Why can the administration not just make it very clear that the mods word is law, and that anybody who doesnt like it can get lost? Cut through all this crap, all this whinging and gnashing of teeth. Stop pretending to be all things to all men, and just say “we are the law, suck it up”.
It’s always an option, but not a very fair sounding one. Why should moderators/Administrators be above the law? They aren’t. Just as most members get a note/caution, then they get a warning, mods also get these.
For instance, I’ve been advised that something I did was not exactly how we do things. It was just a short note to not do that again. I’ve also been more strongly warned not to something again. So far, I haven’t.
As Lynn said, we’ve cut some moderators loose in the past for not following an Admins instructions.
As a poster. I’m assuming that is what the OP meant, though I could be wrong; I think actions as a mod have, and should have, entirely different standards of judgement.
Thanks for the insight, Lynn. As **Irishman **said in his OP, often the concern among us plebes is that if an admonishment isn’t public, it looks like nothing’s happening. Have the staff given any consideration to making moderator discipline more public? E.g., replying to a questionable post to say it’s under discussion or that the moderator has been informed that it’s not appropriate?
That suggests that filing complaints in a forum where we are told that we can do so is somehow poor sportsmanship or unfair. You become one of the unnamed “usual suspects.” Rather than look at the frequency of complaints, why not just look at the worthiness of the complaint itself?
At least one moderator calls a complaintant a “whiner” without explaining the difference.
Yes, there are certain mods that I like less than others. But I don’t have the option of paying less attention to their instructions. Should you, as moderators, ignore the complaints of Dopers who complain too often in the eyes of the moderators?
Actually, I should have said “baseless complaints”, rather than just complaints. Some people file complaints continuously, but their complaints are always justified. On the other hand, there are some posters who would complain if a moderator stated that it was a nice day where s/he was.
I’m not all that active in moderation any more, and I no longer receive email notifications of reported posts. I’m still an admin, and I can still perform all of the admin functions, I’m just on standby duty. When I was on active duty, though, I received a lot of email notifications. Most were reasonable. However, there were a few posters who complained constantly. Some of them would report any post that went against their political or religious beliefs. Some would report just about any post by other posters that they disliked. Some bitched constantly about the moderation. Generally, if I got a report from one of the usual suspects, I didn’t even bother to check it out. If the post was genuinely offensive, someone else was bound to report it, and I’d check out THAT report. But it’s the old story of the little boy who cried wolf. Note: the comic in that link is SFW. The webcomic in general is very much NSFW.
For those who are curious…I usually got at least a couple of reports on any post that was genuinely a violation of the registration agreement. I’d get at least a dozen or so reports for any spam, at least until posters learned to post “Reported” when they reported a post.
I don’t know how big a concern that moderation of moderators be public amongst the plebes, other than a few who see the moderation of a online message board as some sacred duty that needs to be held to the same standard as mall cops and TSA screeners. I don’t see an overwhelming call for such openness, just the same people calling for it over and over. This particular plebe is not concerned if the moderation is not public.
Thanks, Lynn. Your reading comprehension gets an A+. Sam needs to take the course again. Either that or he didn’t read your post. Maybe if he has read the one in which you explain in more detail, he will understand.
There is in both of Lynn’s posts. But she has a reasonable explanation.
And when did you get to be the authority on what the Administrators do and don’t do?
The problem is, you can’t make that assumption. Just because people don’t say anything doesn’t mean that people wouldn’t like it to be better. It’s equally likely that the majority of people don’t care, or don’t think their comments will change anything. (The latter being a complaint I hear often at the splinter boards.)
If the majority of people did not want it, I’d expect a lot of people to be in here saying it was a dumb idea. It’s more likely that people just don’t care enough about the subject. But, then, why wouldn’t you pay more attention to the people who care than the people who don’t? You could please everybody that way.
Anyways, my argument is simple. It seems this board values the idea that things are fair. We are allowed to complain. All moderation of members is transparent. It seems it would be consistent to make moderation of moderators also transparent. Especially in such simple ways as have been proposed in this thread.
But, at this point, I’ve regained my trust of the moderators, and unless I see a mod do something really bad, I’m not going to get all fired up about it. But I do think you might have less people getting fired up if you try the simple solutions, like the one proposed by SfG. Get that number of dissatisfied people even lower, to the point where we can all agree that the leftovers are just trolling.