Unsuitable moderators?

Man1975

How do moderators become moderators? Can they ban people and lock threads just based on their own judgements? Some on Personal Issues seem signally insensitive and high handed.

Gordon

Moderators become moderators for many reasons. They have to use their judgement so, yes, they do lock threads just based on their own judgements. But usually their judgement is in alignment with the basic rules of boards.ie and the charter of the forum.

Can you link to the particular problems you are perceiving?

Man1975

Thanks for replying. I'm thinking of these two examples in particular.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054872338&highlight=girlfriend%27s+mother
Someone suggested this was a 'troll' and Beruthiel immediately threatened to ban them. The suggestion was not that unreasonable, and the thread did descend into absurdity.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054880445
This seems like someone with a serious phobia about toilets outside his home, a psychological problem. Many posts on that forum could be classed as psychol. problems, and people with eg depression are treated sensitively: this post seems to have been quickly classed as a physical medical problem and dismissed (closed by Beruthiel, I assume as she was the last to post).

In general this moderator's advice seems to be along the lines of 'pull yourself together'. I think the things she suggests would occur to people pretty readily, but their problem is that they cannot bring themselves to do those things.

As her motto suggests, she seems to pride herself on being blunt. I can understand why someone of her evident common sense and confidence would become impatient with the people who post on the board, but perhaps that is a reason to consider taking a break from moderating?

Gordon

The first link you posted I found the reference to "Troll" by Marts and a warning by Thaed, although I haven't checked the rest of the thread it is very possible that this also happened with Beruthiel posting a similar warning.

In these cases where there is a suspect thread that is a possible troll I (as I am also a mod of PI) will tend to give it some slack for a number of reasons. Maybe I am just old and cynical and there actually is truth in the thread - maybe it will give people a bit of a chuckle and maybe there could be some good that will come out of the thread. I'm completely on the side of the Mod in that case. PI is a very liquid forum (as are a great deal of fora on boards and bulletin boards in general) ie: there is at any time a very high possibility for a thread to start pissing down or burning up in flames. (OK, maybe liquid wasn't the best word to use)

PI concerns deep personal issues in most cases so to have threads that will easily get sidetracked into nonsense, flames, trolls and outright violent actions is a danger that is possible at any moment. The mods on PI have to make sure that the users keep within the guidelines.

It is off topic for someone to call troll on a thread. Sometimes it's let slip but generally it is way off topic. If someone wants to call troll then they can use the report post function on the post itself.

As for your second link. That was either a medical thread or a complete pisstake troll thread. Very glad it was closed. And if it was indeed a psychological problem (and who are we to say that it is or is not?) then the person should be seeking medical/psychological advice. It is not up to PI to provide this. PI is not a medical board. That's an obvious one which you may not have picked up on yet?

So I'm not quite sure how to take your post. You have problems with a particular moderator and link to two threads where you see problems with her moderating. The first point you made was blatantly factually incorrect as you are talking about Thaed who is not Beruthiel. Beruthiel closed the thread - Thaed gave out the warnings. And in the second point - you seem to have a problem with Beruthiel's advice but you don't have a problem with dudara's which is all she was agreeing with.

All I can ascertain from this is that you have a problem with Beruthiel and haven't given any good reason why you have a problem with her. Kinda pointless really don't you think? Maybe you should take a break from posting seeing as you aren't actually posting anything that is factually correct?

Man1975

Hi,
Thank you for that very full reply.

I have to apologise for the first instance: as it was a different moderator issuing the warning, then I've made a mistake. Also, I didn't know there was a different way to make known that a post seemed like an obvious troll/flame; thank you for pointing that out.

In the second case, I can't agree with your analysis. I do realise that PI is not a medical forum, but that case seems to me a psychological one. I can only repeat that many threads on that board deal with depression and other mental maladies, and these are not quickly closed, nor are they quickly told to post elsewhere. This one deserved some respect.

Finally, your closing remarks seem to be intended to be sarcastic/facetious: I don't think that's very useful, as my post was intended seriously. I do take exception to many posts by that moderator, but get the impression that she is probably an intelligent and assertive (but not aggressive) person. I don't think I have a problem with her, but query whether she is suited to that forum. The body of your post was clear and to the point; the conclusion seems only intended to irritate.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my query.

Gordon

Indeed it was intended to irritate, it irritated me that you had seemingly put forward a random argument with incorrect facts. We were both wrong then.

We do get quite a bit of psychological related threads yeah. These tend to be more grey-areaish than the purely medical advice threads. However psychological advice still can step over the boundaries into medical advice, this is a judgement call that the mods have to make.

As for the thread you're talking about, you may think that the OP needs psychological advice but I (and Beruthiel - I am presuming) took that thread to be inappropriate for PI. It looked like a troll to me, and if it wasn't then the guy needed proper psychological advice that cannot be given on these boards. As, as much as medical advice is out of bounds - so is such a level of psychological advice.

Us mods try our best to judge what is real or not, or what is best or not for the forum we mod. It doesn't mean we are right. In this case, however, I'm all for those actions.