Moderation guidelines discussion

[Fla$her]

A button to send a user an email is not always available to the moderators. But all users can send an email to a moderator through the forum.

It looks implausible. You can send me an email, but you just don't want to do it.

Then the option in the report form saying "Notify me: Informs you when your report is dealt with." should be taken away - If the user chooses "Yes" to this option, he will expect to get a feedback.

Yes, I, for example, expected, and more than once. No reaction. Why delete the option?

[JOUBE]

Then the option in the report form saying "Notify me: Informs you when your report is dealt with." should be taken away - If the user chooses "Yes" to this option, he will expect to get a feedback.

Thank you, I had completely forgotten that: Of course I had ticked that box *). An so, an answer is expected.

*) If there is one. (I don't remember if there was a box and won't check this now out. But it was amazing and annoying that there was no reply).

[white]

I think you mean that you should get a personal response after flagging a post by using the "Report this post" button. I have just explained to you my understanding of the report system. If you want a response, that is not what the report system is meant for.

Then the option in the report form saying "Notify me: Informs you when your report is dealt with." should be taken away - If the user chooses "Yes" to this option, he will expect to get a feedback.

As the option says, this handles whether or not you will receive an automatic notification message from the system when the report is closed. It's similar to other notification messages. The most you can get with this is an automatic notification that your report has been closed and by whom, nothing more. You don't get such notification when the report stays open, when the report is deleted or when the concerning post is deleted. And if someone closes a report, there is no option to enter a reason of feedback.

[Hacker]

1. Moderators do not have to respond to emails nor other forms or private messages. They should, and they usually do, but they do not have to. Yes, Christian could change the rules so that we'd have to, but that'd be very abusable and in the end it wouldn't change anything except force moderators to either break that rule or quit. There is only so long a moderator is willing to discuss "yes, your signature link is considered commercial" vs. "no, it isn't".

2. Moderators do not have to justify their actions in any way whatsoever. They have been chosen based on their good judgement shown over time. If you disagree with a moderator's decision, consider if it isn't you who is in the wrong instead of the moderator, especially if you are new to the forum, or are perhaps used to some other forum with different rules.

3. Moderators try to do their jobs the best they can. If you feel wrongly moderated, they may have made a mistake, or you may have overstepped. It takes quite an effort to be moderated, though (because moderating is work and we're lazy ). Certainly, you can discuss it in the OT thread on the forum or through email or any other private means (but see point #1).

4. There is no way to respond to a report. We can only click "Close report" or "Delete report". Personally, I don't even know what the difference is, and again personally, I almost never read them (they are hidden away in some special Moderator Control Panel part of the forum which I rarely use), since I read all the forum posts anyways. I guess if a moderator deletes a spam post, but does not read the report, the report gets auto-closed(?) and the moderator does not even know there was any report. Please do not expect any responses to reports, there is no working functionality to do that. If you want an answer, please send an email.

If users disagree with the rules, of course they can be changed by Christian.

(I wonder, if a user is unable to understand the logic of a moderator's actions and words, should the user be recognized as incompetent? )

Hacker (Moderator)

[white]

In my view, moderators function as referees. They make decisions (right or wrong) and give instructions. Users should follow these directions, not debate them, at least not on the forum. For various reasons, I think it's wise not to discuss a moderator's comment in the public space. Therefore, I believe the guideline to comment on a moderator's comment via email is a wise one. Consequently, I won't allow a comment of mine as a moderator to be commented on on the forum, not even in the Off-Topic thread, because I don't believe it is suited for that purpose and it goes against the guidelines.

I agree that moderators should respond to emails, within reason and when necessary. For example, an email that doesn't concern a question and doesn't indicate that the sender wants to discuss something can be left unanswered.

I guess if a moderator deletes a spam post, but does not read the report, the report gets auto-closed(?) and the moderator does not even know there was any report.

I did some testing using my username "white2" before I posted my comments about this in my previous post. A notification is only shown when a report was closed explicitly. So not when the report was deleted and not when the concerning post was deleted.

[Fla$her]

Who would doubt that moderators would start covering their backs and absolving themselves of responsibility for harmful actions: we are lazy, we owe nothing to anyone, we can be biased, we act as we see fit, and we will not change our decisions. Quite an arrogant attitude towards the community.
Moderators are not judges at all, they are more like cops who, among other things, can grab, hurt, not wanting to justify their actions qualitatively. It's good that this doesn't happen everywhere and not always. The judge in contentious issues is only the administrator or the owner of the resource, who must have a neutral status to consider the complaint of forum members. Also on some forums there is such a person as a supermoderator, who also has the right to influence the false verdicts of lower-level moderators. It's a pity he's not here.

If you disagree with a moderator's decision, consider if it isn't you who is in the wrong instead of the moderator, especially if you are new to the forum, or are perhaps used to some other forum with different rules.

It's about this absolution of responsibility that I am writing. Is mentor's right above justice? No presumption of innocence for the rest? This doesn't happen in a normal community and should not be. This is similar to the excuses of a policeman who used a gun during arrest. It is clear why there are more than 1,000 murders by police officers in the States per year. The same permissiveness that I wrote about earlier.

Personally, I don't even know what the difference is, and again personally, I almost never read them

That's the news! It turns out that users spent hundreds of hours explaining the reasons for their complaints, and their text was simply ignored. Such moderation should have no place on the forum.

If users disagree with the rules, of course they can be changed by Christian.

I very much hope so.

[Hacker]

Fla$her,

Who would doubt that moderators

I spoke only for myself, my view of moderators. Please do not mis-paraphrase what I said. Unless you start quoting other moderators as well, address only me directly if you refer to my post.

would start covering their backs

There is nothing to cover, I spoke openly and plainly. If you see any need to cover anything, it's only in your imagination. All moderation happens in the open (except for spambots, we just ban those immediately, and obvious double-posts, we delete those immediately as well).

responsibility for harmful actions

Usually in response to a previous harmful action by a user.

we are lazy

True.

we owe nothing to anyone

True.

we can be biased

True.

we act as we see fit

True.

we will not change our decisions

Depends. Mostly our decisions are well thought-out so there is rarely any reason to change.

Moderators are not judges at all, they are more like cops

We have to be all of that.

This is similar to the excuses of a policeman who used a gun during arrest. It is clear why there are more than 1,000 murders by police officers in the States per year.

Moderators really murder people by the dozens here

It turns out that users spent hundreds of hours explaining the reasons for their complaints, and their text was simply ignored. Such moderation should have no place on the forum.

The text was not intentionally ignored, I assume it was simply not seen by anyone.
Guildeline 8. says: "If you want to comment on a moderator's comment or action please send him an email." So just follow the rules, send an email, as is written in the guidelines if you have any questions, and the moderator will usually answer. If you don't come to a satisfactory enough conclusion, the highest instance is Christian, and if you don't succeed there, you have to live with the decision.

Hacker (Moderator)

[Fla$her]

Hacker

I spoke only for myself, my view of moderators. Please do not mis-paraphrase what I said. Unless you start quoting other moderators as well, address only me directly if you refer to my post.

Do you see the quote before the written? Why do you accuse me of some paraphrasing if I did not refer to some text? I evaluated what was written by two moderators, in case you didn't understand.

There is nothing to cover, I spoke openly and plainly. If you see any need to cover anything, it's only in your imagination. All moderation happens in the open

You can also cover your backs openly and plainly. Open access has nothing to do with it. Covering the backs means everything that you have confirmed above (about laziness, relieving yourself of responsibility, etc.). It's not imagination, it's facts.

Depends. Mostly our decisions are well thought-out so there is rarely any reason to change.

Perhaps rarely, but they are there. Only nothing gets fixed in these "rare" cases.

We have to be all of that.

I didn't understand. Rephrase, please.

Moderators really murder people by the dozens here

You understand perfectly well that it was not about murders, but about irresponsibility for unprofessional or ill-conceived actions.

The text was not intentionally ignored, I assume it was simply not seen by anyone.

I quoted you verbatim. You wrote that you intentionally almost never read this text, not that you might accidentally overlook it. This text contains the main argumentation, without which it is impossible to evaluate the complaint itself as a reason for further moderation.

Guildeline 8. says:

This rule doesn't fit here, because the complaint can concern any user, not just the moderator. Moreover, how can you understand that we are talking about a moderator if you don't even read the text of the complaint?

and the moderator will usually answer

Would I raise this problem here if it were really so (I'm not talking about you specifically)?

[Hacker]

Fla$her,

I evaluated what was written by two moderators, in case you didn't understand.

Then please quote where two moderators wrote that they are lazy.

relieving yourself of responsibility

Please stop misrepresenting what I said. I have nowhere written anything about relieving myself nor ourselves of responsibility. I actually said the complete opposite (we have to be both "judges" and "cops"), our responsibility is both to try and correctly interpret the intent and the letter of the rules, and enforce them appropriately. Please understand that whenever we moderate someone, it's because he overstepped the rules in a severe way, or overstepped them several times in a smaller way. No moderator enjoys moderating other members, we don't want to spread any antagony between members, we carefully try and stop it whenever it reaches some threshold which I think is quite well set. You can make a poll if other members think the moderators are acting too harshly on the forum and are too strict. Or too lenient, or more or less appropriate. I believe we are keeping a good balance over the years here, overall.

I didn't understand. Rephrase, please.

We have to be both judges - i.e. determine, if something went against the rules or not, and cops - i.e. to perform the moderation action (warning, deletion, ban, etc.).

but about irresponsibility for unprofessional or ill-conceived actions.

You took a very bad example. If you wish to compare it to something, you can compare it to a security guy in a workplace. "Do you throw litter on the floor? Let me pick it up and please don't do it anymore. Do you harrass your colleagues? Please don't, they might not like it. Did you intrude on the premises to promote some commercial spam? We'll have to throw you out of here the 1000th time." If a bad decision happens, it's not because moderators are trigger-happy cowboys who are power-hungry and enjoy themselves in banning poor innocent citizens, but because they have banned 30 spam bots today, moved ten threads to the correct forums, and perhaps they have misjudged one post, which might or might not be perceived as offensive (this is just an example, not talking about any specific post / moderator / action).
Out of my personal experience in this forum, when there is a conflict between a member and a moderator, and the member feels wrongly moderated, in ~95 % of the cases, I believe the moderator made the right decision. The other ~5 % the moderator may have misunderstood a joke, or missed some provocation from another member and moderated the wrong person. But usually it is the member who wrongly believes he is in the right.

You wrote that you intentionally almost never read this text, not that you might accidentally overlook it.

But it's not because I know the text is there but intentionally decide not to look at it. It is because my moderation for 20 years now never included that functionality, it was only added in some recent (few years ago) forum update and I never used it, because it does not help me moderate. It's not because I'd think "someone might have written something there, I intentionally must look some other way as not to see it". When I sometimes saw some report during moderation, it was something like "this post is spam, please delete". Why should I take extra time to read such reports? I delete spam posts anyway, I don't need to read five reports saying "this post is spam". It's not useful to me. So I don't use this functionality, since it does not help me in moderating in any way. I did not know users are trying to communicate this way with moderators, and now that I do, I ask them that they do not, because 1st, I don't read these reports (for reasons stated above), 2nd, we are unable to respond to such reports (there is no "Reply" or anything like it, only Delete and Close), and 3rd, the Guidelines state that users who want to talk to a moderator should use email, so please, whoever wants to talk to a moderator, please write him an email. Personally, I am fine with communicating here or in the OT thread as well, so others can look a little into the daily moderation job if they wish and understand that it's mostly deleting spam and moving threads and sometimes resolving conflicts between members (usually to nobody's satisfaction). So let me repeat to you, again, if you want to talk to a moderator, send him an email, the mod will talk to you but you may not come to a satisfactory conclusion, then you either live with it or talk to Christian. That's it, those are your choices. Please respect that.

the complaint can concern any user, not just the moderator

Complaints about users are resolved by moderators, right? So you need to contact a moderator, right? I don't understand the problem.
If you want to reach a user, send him an email. If he has not allowed sending emails, you are out of luck.
If you want to complain about a user, you complain to a moderator, so, send an email to a moderator. All of them have emails enabled.
If you want to complain about a moderator to Christian, you know how to reach him.
Which situation is not covered?

Would I raise this problem here if it were really so (I'm not talking about you specifically)?

I have absoultely no idea what you would or would not do, I am only pointing out the options all users including you do have.
If you have specific concerns about specific moderators, which are not resolved by said moderators, contact Christian. You have all the right to do that.

Hacker (Moderator)

[white]

Also on some forums there is such a person as a supermoderator, who also has the right to influence the false verdicts of lower-level moderators. It's a pity he's not here.

Yes, there is. Mr. Ghisler is the supermoderator who reads all posts and oversees everything. What more could you wish for?

If users disagree with the rules, of course they can be changed by Christian.

I very much hope so.

You are welcome to post your suggestions.

Guildeline 8. says:

This rule doesn't fit here, because the complaint can concern any user, not just the moderator..

In which case Guideline 7 also says to email a moderator.

I took a look at the "Report this post" function. I think it's actually pretty clear.
It doesn't say:

Use this form to file a complaint against a someone, your complaint will be handled such and such.

It says:

Use this form to report the selected post to the forum moderators and board administrators. Reporting should generally be used only if the post breaks forum rules.

So you can use this if you want to be helpful to the moderators and point to posts that might be breaking forum rules.

It also says this:

Notify me:
Informs you when your report is dealt with.

Which indicates (unlike previously suggested) that you will not receive a substantive response to your report, but that you can opt in to receive a notification when the report is closed, so you can check for yourself whether or not it was decided to take action.

[Fla$her]

Hacker

Then please quote where two moderators wrote that they are lazy.

I don't see the point, since the generalization came from you:

because moderating is work and we're lazy

And then you repeatedly write "we", and not about yourself specifically.

Please stop misrepresenting what I said. I have nowhere written anything about relieving myself nor ourselves of responsibility.

You probably don't really understand the essence of irresponsibility. This is exactly the area where moderators are not punished for their improper actions, so they allow themselves to act beyond what is permissible. You yourself have indicated that you can be lazy and biased. These facts are enough to talk about a reduced responsibility for such an approach. You need to understand that the removal of responsibility may not be from everything in the world, but from specific actions (incorrect moderation in particular).

We have to be both judges

Not observed yet. The judge always justifies his actions qualitatively before passing a verdict.

You took a very bad example.

This is quite a common example. The radicality of the action does not negate the essence of irresponsibility or weak responsibility (deprivation of rank or suspension from service instead of prison, for example). The example fits well into the logic of assessing the presence or absence of abuse of authority.

The other ~5 % the moderator may have misunderstood a joke, or missed some provocation from another member and moderated the wrong person.

Your modest list lacks an inadequate assessment of what has been written, the use of erroneous theses and far-fetched generalizations.
5% is a lot for erroneous verdicts, especially when in addition there are threats for relapses.

So I don't use this functionality, since it does not help me in moderating in any way.

You only cite spam situations where it is already obvious what to do with the post. But there are enough situations that are completely unobvious for understanding further actions. For example, the need to move the topic to another section, which I have done repeatedly, and a more responsible moderator, who understands perfectly well why he needs to read the appeal, carried out this transfer. The same applies to complaints. One moderator deletes the post on request, the other for some reason returns without justification. These are the miracles that happen here.

So let me repeat to you, again, if you want to talk to a moderator, send him an email, the mod will talk to you but you may not come to a satisfactory conclusion, then you either live with it or talk to Christian. That's it, those are your choices. Please respect that.

How is respect related to the ability to use a profile to send emails? My initial request doesn't exclude this method.

If you want to complain about a user, you complain to a moderator, so, send an email to a moderator. All of them have emails enabled.

I can simply ask to fix something in the message. Why do I need to contact someone through someone's profile and then email, if there is a tool for contacting through a specific post without the need for additional authorization? Do you want to absolve yourself of responsibility for moderating these appeals?

I have absoultely no idea what you would or would not do, I am only pointing out the options all users including you do have.

The answer is already embedded in the rhetorical question. Such questions should not be answered. Obviously, a topic bring up when a problem arises.

If you have specific concerns about specific moderators, which are not resolved by said moderators, contact Christian. You have all the right to do that.

This may not help because of the unwillingness of the admin to interfere, even if he believes that the moderator is wrong about something. Deadlock.

[Fla$her]

Yes, there is. Mr. Ghisler is the supermoderator who reads all posts and oversees everything. What more could you wish for?

This is a misconception. The supermoderator doesn't have a number of powers that the admin has. Don't confuse.

You are welcome to post your suggestions.

I started with that.

It says:

This contradicts the listed reasons for contacting in the drop-down list through this form.

[Hacker]

Fla$her,

the generalization came from you:
[...]
And then you repeatedly write "we", and not about yourself specifically.

You must have missed this:

I spoke only for myself, my view of moderators.

So if you want to address my view of the moderators, address me and my view specifically and don't misrepresent what I explicitly stated.

they allow themselves to act beyond what is permissible

Permissible as defined by whom?

The judge always justifies his actions qualitatively before passing a verdict.

No, not always.

This is quite a common example.

I wrote "very bad example", nothing about common or not.

These are the miracles that happen here.

How many of these are caused by using the Report function instead of email?

My initial request doesn't exclude this method.

If you're fine with using email and not the Report functionality then all is fine from my side. Or, do as you wish, but Report might be ignored for reasons stated above several times.

Why do I need to contact someone through someone's profile and then email

Well, if you want your message to be read, that is the correct way.

Do you want to absolve yourself of responsibility for moderating these appeals?

Do you want to absolve yourself of your responsibility to follow the rules and guidelines?

This may not help because of the unwillingness of the admin to interfere, even if he believes that the moderator is wrong about something.

In that case you will have to live with that decision.

Hacker (Moderator)

[white]

It says:

This contradicts the listed reasons for contacting in the drop-down list through this form.

I disagree.

[white]

I have updated the guidelines.

You changed revision date of the forum rules (from "Februari 21, 2011" to "July 18, 2023") instead of changing the revision date of the Guidelines for Moderators. The forum rules were not changed, only the Guidelines for Moderators.

Forum rules - last revision July 18, 2023
...

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Guidelines for Moderators

Here is a list of possible moderator actions (last revision Sep. 27, 2004):