Because it would lead to people trying to plug in names(right or wrong) for every situation mentioned.
Didn’t Manhattan get shown the door? And Nickrz came back to post some really weird stuff.
Someone, not identifying him or her self in this thread (not being known for blowing his/her own trumpet 
) took a short holiday for providing identifying details about a poster contrary to board policy and/or the laws of common sense, but those ripples have long since subsided. If I remember the whole thing correctly; I may very well not.
I don’t see any need to complain about any moderators at the present time. I was being a dick. Granted, part of the reason was that I was irritated at the disparate treatment apparently handed out to myself and the person I was sounding off at, but I do know the proper rules of conduct for MPSIMS and I have no-one to blame but myself for transgressing.
No. And yes.
Both are SDSAB members in good standing, as are most of our past staffers.
That’s odd. Manhattan is listed as a guest and when he left I was sure it was in a blaze of “It’s no fun being a conservative on the Dope”. When I look now his last posts are completely innocuous, so am I misremembering or did we lose a few of his last words?
His guest status is at his request. But he’s still entitled to be SDSAB, he gave long and great service to the Dope, he’s welcome to return at any time, no charge, no problem.
Hi TD how ya doin? (shyly kicks can ) Hope your well and all. I didn’t mean to be such an ass. But I’m trying to do better.
Preemptively warn people about doing that sort of thing and drop the hammer on anyone that does.
Or are you talking about people taking generic scenarios from the past and trying to draw parallels to current events? If so, that’s the point of keeping track of lessons learned. You figure out the nuances of a coherent policy by keeping record of the events- including the decision making process. There’s nothing lost by this transparency but arbitrary authority.
You know what? Me too.
I am no acme of perfection and have said some things over the years I would give a lot to take back, mostly from ignorance, and aggravation, and pride, and just plain ol’ dumbassedness. I’ve been here from the earliest days and made my share of mistakes in that time.
Fortunately for all of us there’s nearly always a chance to turn a situation around for the better once understanding is achieved. That’s true for this message board community as well as the world at large.
We all make mistakes. When you know better, you do better. And we move on.
It really makes my day that you replied to me. I lost my job today over a morals issue and it really warms my heart to know that a sweet lady like you took the time to share your words with me . I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow when I get my next job. Bless your heart. And give my regards to Mr. Zotti when you see him. He’s a nice man and I bet you like working with him.
Not to hijack this thread but I’m sorry to hear of your troubles.
I hope a better outcome is in the works for you right this very minute.
And yeah, Ed’s good people, like the overwhelming majority of the folks here.
There’s no way to talk about it in the abstract, because the problems were very much individual situations. There is no “process” because we have only a small number of mods, and an even smaller number of, ah, situations. Despite the analogy above, we’re not a police force with the need for that kind of oversight.
Basically, complaints about mods get investigated by administrators or by Ed Zotti, and decisions made and actions taken. Like with members in general, usually a warning to the mod is sufficient to get a behavioral change. In a few cases, there has been mutual agreement that the mod relinquish moderating duties. In one case, there was a suspension and in another case, there was a firing.
So you could cut down twees?
Dex! Dex! We have a situation!
You’re such a sweetheart. Don’t you worry. I am only one of two men in Las Vegas who have my particular skill and although I don’t think a lot of myself as a person I do know my job. You guys (mods, admins) have it tough. Every thing you say is picked apart like buzzard on a gut wagon. You people have “moxy”. I hope I’m using that word right. I wouldn’t want to be insulting as I’ve done too much of that already.
SO… what you’re saying is that you calls 'em like you sees 'em and there is no real accountability?
Further, this is, somehow, excusable on the basis that power is concentrated in only a few hands? Oh, and the folks in power say the folks in power don’t need oversight.
Communities are capable of tracking their own self-corrections and formulating a common law, regardless of size. Your complain seems to be not that generic record is impossible, but that it’s not possible in a community this size for such abstract language to provide anonymity. At which point I question why you’d refuse ownership of prior decisions by seeking to hide anonymity.
Actually, the record would need to be generalized to all mod actions not just hot mod-on-mod action. Mod-on-mod action just sets the initial coarse boundary for unacceptable mod behavior.
You know, this sort of stalking of the mods is quite silly.
What makes you think there needs to be better accountability? If you have a specific complaint, make it. If not, if it ain’t broke, don’t worry about it. :rolleyes:
This forum has a simple rule: don’t be a jerk. Violations of that rule are ALWAYS handled on an ad hoc basis.
You are talking about unacceptable mod behavior as a mod, aren’t you? I see no better way to deal with that than to contact an admin and/or Ed.
Are you looking for more transparency on investigations? As in a police review board? Are you looking for the power to impeach? Or what?
OK, OK, I’ve been trying to keep this under wraps, but here’s how it works. When a member complains about a mod, the first point of contact is the Administrator who has that day’s duty roster. The Admin first makes three hard-copies of the complaint, including specific posts or threads mentioned in (or relevant* to) the complaint. We don’t trust electronic copies because of the risk of security being compromised, or even breached.** One copy goes to the Archivist and is on site; one copy goes to the off-site Records, in case of catastrophe onsite. The third copy goes to Ed Zotti. Ed makes a preliminary assessment – for example, if the complaint is completely without merit (for example, we had a complaint that the moderator username “Frank” was a personal insult, because the member had an uncle who was named Frank.)
Once a complaint has passed the preliminary assessment, Ed assigns an investigative team, usually a hand-picked special forces group. The group leader has a fly-swatter as a sceptre of office, it’s a swatter team. The make-up and number of agents depends on the severity of the complaint; sometimes, it’s just reading through threads. Once, it required a search of every car license plate within a four-block radius of Harry Caray’s Steakhouse (don’t ask.) Whatever, the investigating team sets about gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, examining posts with a Septic Microscope to see if there was any tampering, sometimes using SDSAB members for specialty work – Hawk for DNA analysis, Doug for insectological study (to be sure the inquiries aren’t bugged), Gfactor and Bricker for legal inquiries, etc.
When the investigating team has gathered all the evidence, a tribunal is set up, including one randomly chosen member of the Message Boards, one of the READER staff involved with advertising, Ed Zotti, a retired police officer (we think he’s just camping out in the READER office, but we don’t know how to evict him, so we let him sit in) and whichever Administrator wins the rock-paper-scissors elimination rounds. The tribunal listens to the evidence to decide whether there is a primal facial case.
That’s as far as we’ve got in writing up the procedures. Our legal drafters are working on the next steps, but are currently hung up on whether point 17(a)(ii) should be followed by 17(b) or 17(a)iii. Since we’ve never had a case go that far in the process, there hasn’t been any particular crisis.
*[sub]Sometimes it’s not relevant, sometimes it’s hippopotamouse.[/sub]
**[sub]Or son of a breach[/sub]
OK, seriously, 1010011010: Ed Zotti is in charge of the moderators and he takes serious actions when required. Over the last decade, we’ve had three situations that needed serious action… such as suspension or firing. Each one of those was VERY different. Why on earth would we “formulate a common law”? We take the same approach towards correcting moderators that we do towards members: we do NOT want to waste time drafting up some horrendous law code. The basic rule (“Don’t be a jerk”) applies to moderators as well as to members.
Most less serious situations are handled easily by the Administrators and moderators together. When a moderator is in the wrong, it’s usually sufficient to apologize and promise not to repeat.
What have we done to offend you? Or anyone else?
If there has been “unacceptable mod behavior,” we need to know about it.