# There is a better way to moderate than this.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-a-better-way-to-moderate-than-this/841882>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [October 17, 2019, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-a-better-way-to-moderate-than-this/841882 "2019-10-17T02:10:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 41

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**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-a-better-way-to-moderate-than-this/841882/41 "2019-10-17T20:43:43Z")

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> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> The piece of the direction that’s especially concerning–coming across as vindictive and petty–is the “I won’t let you open another one for several days.” Am I to take it that that piece carries no weight?

JC can address that. I generally take the view that addressing specific issues is better than blanket approaches unless the thread is a total trainwreck. Collective punishment is not a great tool, though sometimes a brief hiatus can have a calming effect. I’m being vague on purpose.

One thing I want to mention is that we often get asked variants of, “why aren’t you doing X?” I wrote in a different thread, but it applies here:

> [@I disagree with CarnalK's warning](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-disagree-with-carnalks-warning/841337/47):
>
> I’m not opposed to putting the kibosh on JAQing off, and quickly curtailing pointless focus on minutiae so if those things are reported, then we can take a look. There have been multiple times where I’ve interceded for JAQing, and put on guide rails to avoid getting hung up on minutiae. Both of these things present challenges for moderation though. If a person asks questions and people respond, that looks a lot like actual discussion even if it may not be the highest caliber. If a person points out some minutiae and people respond, that can be organic flow of a discussion even if it may not be very interesting or relevant. If a person does this repeatedly and no one responds, I’m much more likely to intercede than if the conversation is naturally flowing that way. It seems counter intuitive so I’m not sure if that’s the best approach, but that’s how I’ve thought about it thus far.

This is typically my process.

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