I am Admiral Ackbar

[Common]

On those rare occasions when a Moderator has clearly abused his or her authority, or is behaving on the open forum in a way that brings discredit upon not only him- or herself but on the entire Mod team and the board itself, there should be a mechanism for bringing this to everyone's attention - not just the suggestion that we go meekly, hat in hand, to the offending party in a PM, or complain to Admin, etc. At present, as Ethereal has suggested, there is no practical way to accomplish this in most situations without getting shut down.

When a regular member crosses the line, he or she is slapped on the wrist in a very public way; bad behavior by Moderators (and Advisors) should be dealt with in every bit as transparent a fashion.

Sensitive people that get their feelings hurt or do not like the threads someone starts is not abusing authority. Posting what you dont like isnt abusing authority and lastly who gets to decide when a moderator abuses his authority

There are members on here who think abuse of authority is posting a pro trump thread or an anti illegal immigrant thread.
I think you may have abuse of authority confused. You can go in the hole and rage about moderation all you want untethered except for a few aggregious actions.

Whenever you believe a moderator has abused their authority by all means report it.

[Admiral Ackbar]

Here's an idea... Suspend your rules for a day and let people speak their minds honestly and without fear of repercussion. After all, the mod team has demonstrated on more than one occasion that they often have difficulty reading plain English and take what is written to mean whatever they want it to mean, regardless of what it actually says.

Do you have the courage and the desire for truth necessary to do that?

To answer this directly.. I am not concerned about anyone's opinion of my anonymous forum ID and postings. What you are suggesting is like the Purge movie set to this forum.

I am with Common.. Ask Admin if you want.. but I am not asking him.

If there is such a day. I will simply not sign on for that day nor read any of it so it has no practical effect on anything. BTW just go to the Hole and have at it if it makes you feel better. The more vile the better! LOL

[Common]

I concur.

I think moderators should be able to act unilaterally. If they see a problem, they should not have to go to committee to correct it. At the same time, if it is believed a moderator made a bad call or acted inappropriately, there should be a mechanism for review and appeal. During that process, both the moderator and the poster involved should be able to make their respective cases in an open format, with the final decision being made by someone designated specifically to oversee the moderation process... a Chief Moderator, if you will. I would suggest someone like DGUTLEY or Common for that role.

I also think moderators should be assigned specific forums to moderate and they should be required to read every post in every active thread in those forums. This business of waiting until they receive a "report" is nonsense. Also, unless the offense is particularly egregious (physical threats, defamation of family members, things of that nature), there should never be thread ban without an opportunity being provided to self correct the offensive behavior (a warning).

You and I have both moderated forums much larger in membership and more active than this. It really is not rocket science.

Cletus no matter how many times you tell us what you want the rules to be, no matter how many times you tell us how you want the forum to run. You will recieve the same answer, you and I dont make the rules here and we dont get to decide how its run.

[Cletus]

To answer this directly.. I am not concerned about anyone's opinion of my anonymous forum ID and postings. What you are suggesting is like the Purge movie set to this forum.

I am with Common.. Ask Admin if you want.. but I am not asking him.

You scared? You probably should be. I suspect most of what people have to say would not be particularly favorable, but that isn't the point.

The point is to make the forum a better place. I don't know why you would be opposed to that. There are problems and some, certainly not all, but definitely some of those problems lie at the feet of the moderators. The first step in correcting a problem is to acknowledge a problem exists. If you are not willing to do that, things will never get better.

[If there is such a day. I will simply not sign on for that day nor read any of it so it has no practical effect on anything. BTW just go to the Hole and have at it if it makes you feel better. The more vile the better! LOL

Okay, you obviously want to pretend you are some kind of victim here. Believe me, you are not. If anyone is being victimized, it is the posters who have no recourse when it comes to bad moderation. This can be easily fixed by making a few simple changes in procedure. You start by getting rid of the "Us vs Them" mentality that you and some other mods, as well as some posters have. The moderator/poster relationship should not be an adversarial one.

[Cletus]

Cletus no matter how many times you tell us what you want the rules to be, no matter how many times you tell us how you want the forum to run. You will recieve the same answer, you and I dont make the rules here and we dont get to decide how its run.

Look, all I can do is advise. If you guys don't want to get off your asses and make the necessary changes, the forum will just continue its slow death. I know you cannot unilaterally make the changes. I also know that collectively, you could. I know you want this place to be the best forum it could be. It will never be that unless certain problems are fixed.

[Safety]

Safety you always think your right, the problem is most others do not, you may think whatever it is that makes you happy

This is not a matter about me “thinking I’m right”, this is a case of what is $#@!ing written and the accuracy of it. You were not correct when you said moderators do not respond in the hole, you should have said “from now on, admin instructed us to not post in the hole”.

[Tahuyaman]

So, all those posts in the hole from common, dgutley, and other mods are apparitions?

You can criticize the mods all you want in The Hole. There are open threads dedicated to that. They are free to respond if they choose to do so.

[Chris]

This is not a matter about me “thinking I’m right”, this is a case of what is $#@!ing written and the accuracy of it. You were not correct when you said moderators do not respond in the hole, you should have said “from now on, admin instructed us to not post in the hole”.

He meant post as mods. In context, that was more than obvious.

As members they can post with, as DUtley said, a minimum standard of good behavior. If they violate rules, they get kicked off the mod team.

[Safety]

He meant post as mods. In context, that was more than obvious.

As members they can post with, as DUtley said, a minimum standard of good behavior. If they violate rules, they get kicked off the mod team.

Isn't there some sand you can pound somewhere?

[Standing Wolf]

1. "...has clearly abused his or her authority.." -- as determined by whom? You realize the reports that we get and/or the complaints that we get claiming that we've abused our authority? 99.99999% of them would be viewed by any reasonably sane person as argle-bargle. So, who determines?

2. Given that, isn't The Hole the place for that? I don't think you'll find a Mod going into The Hole to argue with you about their conduct. I looked, there are countless threads on Mod behavior in The Hole.


3. Mods should be held to at a minimum the same standard. At a minimum.

DG, you are always more than responsive when asked about some bit of moderation that I have questions or concerns about, so none of my criticism applies to you. I have to say, however, that you can seem to be, in my opinion, a bit too "protective" of anyone holding a Moderator or Advisor position, and perhaps less than as critical as you should be in some cases.

As for The Hole, I don't go there and have no intention of doing so. I think in my entire time on the forum I've been there twice - once to try to figure out why a thread I started was dropped into it, and once by accident.

By the way, maybe I'm just missing it, but can someone point out the Rule that prohibits a member from pointing out that someone is a Moderator in the course of criticizing some nasty, over-the-top bit of nonsense that that person has posted? Or is that just another one of those "bad faith posting" things that seems to get created pretty much at will around here some days?