Moderator Team
02-16-2009, 11:17 PM
Update on implementation of the Code of Conduct and procedures for Suspending Members
Just to keep the membership in the loop, we wanted to give all of you a heads up that some internal Moderating procedures have changed over the past month. Without getting into the internal details of those we figured that we ought to let the general membership know something about what we plan to emphasize and how we plan to do this.
Mods and Tned pretty much arrived at a consensus that we were in many cases overmoderating, that is, taking action on nearly every borderline violation we saw whenever we saw them, including sending those “Concerning your post” PM’s for cases that really didn’t need them. At the same time, our process for dealing with a very few problem and/or disruptive posters was slow, clumsy, and usually ineffective. In many ways this represented the worst of both Worlds. We plan to fix this, and have in fact started already.
What does this mean for our members?
The Moderator staff now handles all member suspension decisions, subject to Tned’s supervision and Veto if needed. This frees Tned to be able to more fairly hear any appeals of Moderator decisions. Moderator suspensions are only imposed with a clear Majority of the entire Moderator staff, at which point one Moderator is selected to notify the member of the suspension, update the log, and actually suspend that member. If a member has been suspended it will never be a case of “so-and-so was out to get him”, because no moderator has the authority to impose a suspension by themselves, outside of an emergency suspension (where a member is totally out of control) or Board spammers.
Because it is our goal to be less intrusive it is our intent to send out fewer of those "Concerning Your Post PM’s", and to disrupt the flow of the board less often. With that being said, at the same time we plan on taking more quick and decisive action when a member is disrupting the forum community via insults, flaming, baiting, deliberately disrupting threads, and what have you. This will mean fewer warnings are given before action is taken than was the case previously. For those very few who expected to get a free pass until they had received formal “Final Warnings” – sometimes repeatedly - this will not always be the case going forward. We don’t plan on suspending members lightly, or for minor ticky-tack language filter mistakes (unless repeated and habitual), but we won’t be slow about it when needed. The object of all of this is to keep this place fun for the bulk of our members
Just to keep the membership in the loop, we wanted to give all of you a heads up that some internal Moderating procedures have changed over the past month. Without getting into the internal details of those we figured that we ought to let the general membership know something about what we plan to emphasize and how we plan to do this.
Mods and Tned pretty much arrived at a consensus that we were in many cases overmoderating, that is, taking action on nearly every borderline violation we saw whenever we saw them, including sending those “Concerning your post” PM’s for cases that really didn’t need them. At the same time, our process for dealing with a very few problem and/or disruptive posters was slow, clumsy, and usually ineffective. In many ways this represented the worst of both Worlds. We plan to fix this, and have in fact started already.
What does this mean for our members?
The Moderator staff now handles all member suspension decisions, subject to Tned’s supervision and Veto if needed. This frees Tned to be able to more fairly hear any appeals of Moderator decisions. Moderator suspensions are only imposed with a clear Majority of the entire Moderator staff, at which point one Moderator is selected to notify the member of the suspension, update the log, and actually suspend that member. If a member has been suspended it will never be a case of “so-and-so was out to get him”, because no moderator has the authority to impose a suspension by themselves, outside of an emergency suspension (where a member is totally out of control) or Board spammers.
Because it is our goal to be less intrusive it is our intent to send out fewer of those "Concerning Your Post PM’s", and to disrupt the flow of the board less often. With that being said, at the same time we plan on taking more quick and decisive action when a member is disrupting the forum community via insults, flaming, baiting, deliberately disrupting threads, and what have you. This will mean fewer warnings are given before action is taken than was the case previously. For those very few who expected to get a free pass until they had received formal “Final Warnings” – sometimes repeatedly - this will not always be the case going forward. We don’t plan on suspending members lightly, or for minor ticky-tack language filter mistakes (unless repeated and habitual), but we won’t be slow about it when needed. The object of all of this is to keep this place fun for the bulk of our members