A suggestion: forum moderators should have mutual guidlines on penalties incurred

turgon

I think there should be consensus between forum moderators about what sort of punishment a particular offense incurs.

In this post a poster calling another one an idiot ("So if you want to accuse people of "listening to idiots" (YOUR phrase, not mine) I'd suggest you find a mirror.") which is a serious issue in my books, especially in a divisive forum such as politics, warrants only a warning.

Me commenting on the crap level of debate in such threads apparently merits a full infraction.

The issue here obviously being that two different mods gave the two separate punishments.

Some level of consensus on what is serious and what is not is clearly lacking. My suggestion is some kind of guidelines be made.

Boston

Do you know what a guideline is? A guideline is not a hard and fast rule set in stone, its a guide, nothing more. What you're actually looking for is something which says all users are treated in the same blind fashion without giving and heed to their past actions on the forum.

Liam Byrne got a warning because maybe the moderator in question knew that a warning was all Liam needed to get back on track and cop on. Maybe the moderator had no such knowledge with regards to yourself? Why can't moderators be allowed to use their own judgement?

turgon

Thats a good point, actually. However its not something I can really comment on as Im not able to judge how I appear in the eyes of the Politics Moderators relative to others.

Saying that, I think that calling someone an idiot in such a manner is more serious than making an offhand remark about the quality of discussion, no matter who is saying it.

Boston

Well you would do. However, you cannot argue that it wasn't an infractable offence, you're main complaint is that leniency wasn't shown to you in the same way it was Liam.

orestes

Mods deal with things on a case by case basis as there is a lot that has to be taken into account before a warning/infraction/ban is handed out. As it is a case by case thing and the mods are the ones making the judgement calls a hard-set "rule book" for modding is basically impossible to even write, let alone implement, not withstanding the pain in the arse they would have from people trying to find loopholes in it to try and get away with crap with laywer-style rhetoric. The charters are guidelines, the mods enforce them using their own judgement as the admins of the site have appointed them as mods on the basis that they are confident they can use that judgement fairly.

If this is about your own slap on the wrists from the politics mods though this belongs in the Help Desk, not Feedback.

bonkey

turgon wrote: »

In this post a poster calling another one an idiot ("So if you want to accuse people of "listening to idiots" (YOUR phrase, not mine) I'd suggest you find a mirror.") which is a serious issue in my books, especially in a divisive forum such as politics, warrants only a warning.

That post is of someone accusing another user of listening to idiots, not of being one.

Me commenting on the crap level of debate in such threads apparently merits a full infraction.

That post is of someone accusing other posters of "sounding like a baby throwing his toys out of his pram".

In addition, given that the topic wasn't about the standard of debate, it didn't even have relevancy to the topic at hand.

The issue here obviously being that two different mods gave the two separate punishments.

Surely if thats the issue, its a case for Helpdesk, not Feedback?

Some level of consensus on what is serious and what is not is clearly lacking. My suggestion is some kind of guidelines be made.

I don't see any major inconsistency in how the different situations were modded. Your comment was a direct insullt of posters. The other post was suggesting that the poster was guilty of what they accused others of...basing their position on the arguments of idiots. Borderline...but it at least was attacking the position taken, rather than the person.

If you do, then again...I would argue that is a question for Helpdesk and the Admins, not something for Feedback.

bonkey

p.s. I don't particularly appreciate you PMing me about this issue, and then taking it to Feedback without giving me the courtesy of waiting for a reply.

Jazzy

Boston wrote: »

Do you know what a guideline is? A guideline is not a hard and fast rule set in stone, its a guide, nothing more.

so everything is permeable and nothing is solid. that would leave an awful lot of personal opinion to fill the void. solid

turgon

Apologies for my misinterpretation Bonkey.

Of course in everyones mad rush to condemn any poster who doesnt believe that the Boards.ie team isnt 100% right in its mods decision they forgot what this thread is all about: feedback. I was making a suggestion on how to improve Boards (the essence of feedback). I wasnt looking for some kind of appeal, Im beyond the naivety of thinking such things can happen.

Apologies to Liam Byrne. My singling out of you want personal its just because your post was in the same thread.

I think its email and password scrambling time. It was nice while it lasted.

Cheerio.

Permabear

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The_Minister

turgon FFS. Get away from the keyboard, walk away to cool your head and then carry on being one of the better, more coherent and informed posters on Boards.

Don't run off because of such a small thing.

Dudess

Agreed. Don't let something like that get to you, turgon. It's not a big deal in the greater scheme of things.

5starpool

huh? Toys out of pram over this tread?

The_Minister

5starpool wrote: »

huh? Toys out of pram over this tread?

Not helpful.

Permabear

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sceptre

As I note at the bottom, this is a bit long. Longer than planned. Oops.


Howdy

I'm taking it as feedback rather than a complaint. As a quick note, it's often better to offer feedback without direct comparisons as otherwise people will tend to take it as a complaint. It's a natural thing, just like above.

We don't have a strict Offence X = Penalty Y list for a few reasons. Some of the quick reasons, completely random as they rush into my head are:

1. Context. Someone saying something at one point of a thread may have different import than the same person or someone else saying it at a different point in the thread.

2. User history. Unfortunate that it is taken into consideration but some people are plain arseaboutery troublemakers. An obvious low-level troll may get a slap whereas someone who isn't may not. Please bear in mind that I'm answering this as feedback and hence I'm not dealing with specifics but I may as well say that I strongly doubt this was a factor in the cited case above. Last time I'll stress the generalised nature of the reply though. Extend this ato a pile of things, not just a long-run user history. Someone that keeps starting stupid threads will probably get no penalty the first time, something the second time and eventually a ban. Starting a schedule leads to problems, see below.

3. A list of "offence = penalty" will lead to people occasionally taking the penalty as something worth the offence". You'll see that with people who throw in some insult finishing with "go ahead, ban me" and then get surprised when they get banned for a month or permanently. This tends to happen on other forums a bit more (TNF, AH, etc) but it's just as applicable to a schedule of offences anywhere else.

4. Where necessary moderators will take any action necessary to preserve the forum and the forum community. A schedule precludes this. It binds the hands of the moderators and turns a human judgement call into a machine operation. But also, it makes each insult equal and they aren't always.

5. etc: That's just a few, I could list another 10 or 20 but I'm time limited at the moment I'm afraid. I think you get the idea. It's all down to what, where, when, how and to a lesser extent who.

Now, dealing with the main aspect of the initial feedback (which was the notion that two different mods would give different penalties for the same thing or get them backwards), moderators will at times differ. I'd be lying if I said they won't because I know they will. They all make a judgement call as they go. And in general there's a certain culture on a forum and the common law of precedent will guide any penalties as much as anything else. But from our perspective, often outside the circle of discussion, it's easier to decide that in context, etc (all those 10 or 20 or whatever factors taken into consideration) what a particular penalty should be.

And mods effectively act as a check and a guide on each other as well - that's one of the main reasons why I reckon every forum should have two mods at minimum regardless of how quiet that forum is. Also coverage factors but the checksum is just as important. Most "dodgy posts" can be differentiated from each other by quite a few factors, often mainly through import and likely effect.

The key thing though is that moderators have a good idea on what their co-mods will do. You'd be surprised. I especially notice it on the forum that occupies most of my time (which happens to be Politics) where I often notice a pretty oiled machine going out into the madness. And the odd thing is that there's no formal hierarchy behind it at all. Oh, there's plenty of possibility for mods to call each other on being too severe or not severe enough. And some forums do that more formally than others. I'm not going to name them but some forums check more than half their calls with each other and some don't. You can substitute in "can't" if you like - the volume can make quite a difference.

You look at the main categories of warning/infraction we have - breach of the peace, inappropriate language, insulting other member, breach of forum charter, they're all differentiated for a reason. I know I sometimes tend to write comparatively long messages to people who are warned or infracted but ultimately that's for their benefit and for the forum in a secondary indirect manner. Mainly for theirs. The actual issuing of the card is often for the benefit of the forum as that's where the moderator owes their primary duty of care, with the duty to the particular member a secondary one.

As for the two above (and this is getting very specific, too specific for feedback), can they be differentiated in this way? Yes. Actually thay have been but I'm treating this as feedback and hence I'm not dealing with the justification of the differentiation - feel free to start a Help Desk thread on that after any reply from the moderator in question (who's posted above saying he got a PM).

There are certain exceptions. For example I always give a red card on Politics for an on-thread troll accusation. It's listed specifically in the charter. Having said that, as long as no-one takes the proverbial, you can call each other trolls on the UL forum all day and I won't bat an eyelid until it becomes a problem (which admittedly would be soon) as it's not specifically mentioned in the charter and hasn't hitherto been a problem on that board. Unlike Politics, where it was a growing problem before it got specific mention and a slap penalty. There are very few of these, actually given that we accept abuse as a slapworthy penalty, that's the only offence of strict liability I always run with... I think.

I'm not dealing with the comment about randomising the password and walking away. That's not part of my role. If I do it for one, it looks bad if I don't do it for all or most. So that's nothing to do with the feedback and I think it's understandable that I view it that way. I'll take reasonable comments and discuss them here on this thread when I have time. But here's the key part: as moderators anywhere on the site we're entrusted with the community. And we have a duty to that community and a duty to the members of that community. And a duty to individual members. And a lot of the time those things don't clash. But when they occasionally do, the ultimate completely overriding duty of any moderator is to the future community of tomorrow, next week and in six months time. Happily that doesn't tend to conflict with the community of today. Community preservation and development. That's what it's all about.

Now I know I've answered the above with vague specifics about Politics. Politics takes more of my time than Literature. Which is a pity really as Literature is really more fun. But the general principles are my general view on forums in general. So if anyone comes back with specific reasons why I'm wrong on this specific board, I'll come back with reasons that apply to all of the boards. Because as Feedback, turgon obviously used a specific comparison to highlight a general query. I think it's reasonable, with his clarification above in post 8 (which personally I think was necessary as it wasn't entirely clear beforehand that it was pure general feedback and turgon is usually specific) that it be discussed this way.

Sooooo, I honestly see your point. But to be honest, from behind the curtain looking out, it's both not anywhere near as much a problem as you think because of the team nature and the informal checks and balances and unworkable as a more formal solution. The moderators take whatever steps are necessary to preserve the forum, any forum. And every decision is appealable up the line in the Help Desk to admins as a final plenary court. That's where the formal checks and balances kick in and the mere existence of that adds to the checks and balances "down the hierarchy" (I don't see it as a hierarchy really but from an appeal point of view, it is in that situation).

It's 3am and I'm not that awake so if anyone needs a bit of the above clarified or simplified, let me know.


Sweet lord Beelzebub, that was a seriously long post for Feedback. I didn't realise. But there are, like, paragraphs and I'm assuming that the OP wanted a decently long reply to the feedback. I started to give the paragraph groups little headlines but too sleepy:), I'm too tired to do a tl:dr version. Read fast, don't eat all the consonants.

Permabear

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bonkey

donegalfella wrote: »

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Its somewhat ironic that this point should be made in a thread that is making a general plea for consistency in moderation.

Ask yourself this...if it wasn't a poster you admited...if it was someone who's presence you were ambivalent towards, or actively thought was a detriment to the forum...would it be to the benefit of the forum to allow such commentary, particularly outside a feedback thread?

See, my problem is this...if I consider who made the comment, then I am - in effect - engaging in consciously biased moderation. I'm deciding that although every poster is equal under the rules, those I approve of are more equal then others. Not only that, but I'm consciously introducing inconsistency in moderation. Joe Bloggs can say something because I like his style, but when Fred Smith says it...out with the cards.

I assume that thisisn't what you meant....which only leaves me with your point being that posters in general should be allowed accuse other posters of "engaging in childish tantrums" (as you put it). I have to ask myself how allowing such commentary in general is somehow beneficial to the thread its on, or to the forum as a whole. From my perspective, I don't see it as beneficial. It can't be discussed in the thread in question without derailing the thread - its off-topic. Its attacking posters and not posts. We even have a specific thread for discussing "tone", if memory serves, so its not like there's no other avenue to (politely) discuss the issue.

As for losing posters...I'd ask you to consider that in the general as well. Should moderators make exceptions when worthwhile posters threaten to leave? Should we make exceptions when any poster threatens to leave? What other factors should we allow to colour our judgement?

The short version: If hair-trigger moderating serves to drive quality posters such as turgon away from the site, it is not serving the future of the community. Quite the opposite.

As I said...either you're suggesting that there be less consistency in moderation, or more leniency towards everyone making comments like this...or perhaps that we should reconsider our positions based on the reaction to them, rather than on whether or not they were appropriate

I'd honestly like to know which of those you think is to the benefit of the community, and how you see that.

Permabear

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Boston

sceptre I read your post in full. I'm kinda amazed you think boards still works the way you outlined at the end. At least there's one idealist.

donegalfella wrote: »

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We cannot allows people strong arm the management threatening to leave or resign mod-ships to get what they want. My suggestion to turgon is that if he wants to influence an administrator in coming to the decision to overrule a moderator on this he should take up five star stud.

Permabear

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Boston

Your post implies that the moderators should factor in the risk of a valued member leaving.

Permabear

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Boston

I don't know about over zealous, but certainly things are becoming more standardised and with that ridged. Something turgon asked for I would like to add. If user history can be used to condemn someone then surely it should be used to spair them from the axe, ney? The powers that sleep and meddal no longer wish for this to be a case. So now when user like turgon, watty, hagar, ect ect run foul of the system, no special allowances can be made, all must be fair all must be treated as the lowest common denominator is treated.

That said, I think if turgon was going to leave the site over an infraction, then he was probably just looking for an excuse to leave and it had nothing to do with mods with zealous.

oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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The premise is that turgon should not have been sanctioned for breaking the rules. I don't accept that premise.

sceptre

donegalfella wrote: »

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We tend to plop trolls into their own special category so I don't think we really do. But I can definitely see where you're coming from. And as it happens mods on various forums obviously do talk about these things - from where I sit with access to any mod boards that exist I can see that they do and the Politics mods are no exception - particularly but not limited to when a new or returning mod comes on board (for example). The ethos and practice of the moderation team is developed and shaped by all of the individual mods contributing inwards and the mods as a team contributing outwards.

(end of view on quoted section)

I don't think turgon is trying to strongarm. That part of the post might be there for no reason but it's rare that serious feedback posts have bits of content for no reason so, well, I don't know why it's there. I'm guessing to stress that it's frustrating and important. So if it is strongarming, I don't think it should influence the specific example (and remember, this was started as feedback rather than an objection and that was stated explicitly in post 8) and if it isn't strongarming then it doesn't influence the outcome. Hence it's irrelevant to my comments. I'd rather the guy stuck around. he's been a good contributor. And a small part of the respect for the guy that I have comes from a post about three months ago from him saying that he wasn't sure what the attitude of the Politics mods was towards him but that his aim on that particular forum has been to be a good contributor. Not for the doubt aspect but the explicit stating that bringing something useful to the table was important to him. People often think these comments aren't noticed. They are. I've always said that everybody brings something (well, except for the trolls), even if some people bring more. Turgon has brought more and hopefully in the future will continue to do so. But no-one's suggested that being a good contributor puts someone above the line when cards are being handed out so it's doubly irrelevant to this thread IMHO.

We have a striking number of genuine assets. Though sometimes what can seem like a strikingly small number of genuine assets. But there exists a small number of posters whose posts I make sure to read on a personal basis rather than a moderation basis for the high average level of their contributions, especially where those contributions are varied and interesting (I get bored easily - the varied is pretty important to me on a personal basis - it's the choice possibility as anyone who's seen my music collection will attest). But there's no question of a nod and a wink. Actually we haven't been asked for a nod and a wink so lets assume we're not discussing one.

We get a lot of strange people on boards at times. We get a lot of nutters at times. But even though some people bring a lot more to the table, if we exclude the trolls who waste electrons and make the universe worth less when they post, as a general thing we don't let things slide past merely because someone has brought a succession of chickens, roast duck and Christmas pudding. We're not going to do that. It would be unfair to the hundreds at the door who just brought a packet of frozen peas. And yes, it might mean that some of the pea people don't get to eat any duck. That's rather unfortunate. But leaving the tired analogy, the Help Desk is always open for complaints or appeals. Object or appeal something specific and that's where it's done. Warnings and infractions are two a penny. They're to be taken seriously and noted but little more than that unless the warning message makes it clear that it's more than that. I've pointed that out to many many people in PM exchanges and to many more when issuing yellow cards in particular to spare the exchange in the first place. And I realise that I'm saying that as someone who's never picked one up, never had a temp ban from a forum, been semi-accused to trolling once, I think by Castor Troy back in 2002ish and once had a thread locked in the mustard forum because ecksor didn't think a thread about moose turd pie was all that appropriate. Obviously even with failing memory I note these things. They don't keep me awake at night though.

Let's remind ourselves that the thread title begins "a suggestion....". It's not a bad suggestion, just in my opinion an unworkable and unfortunately undesirable one for the reasons I listed in the last post by me (don't make me list more, make up your own, some of you are mods and probably have dozens).

Boston wrote: »

sceptre I read your post in full. I'm kinda amazed you think boards still works the way you outlined at the end. At least there's one idealist.

I don't see me as an idealist, though I'll admit that often people I've worked with have noticed that there's a certain set of ethics that I run with. But it's the way things should be done and generally speaking it's the way I think things are run. But then I've never fallen foul of this system much so you could say that I'm blinkered or biased (as far as i remember I never asked to be made mod of the IrelandOffline forum, Politics or UL (I did ask for Literature), never asked to be made an smod or an admin IIRC, though obviously I've been as flattered as any other reasonable person and have been up for doing so) but either way having an element of lofty ideals can be a good thing.

(end of view on quoted section)

I don't have a solution here. I've given my view on the original suggestion and feedback. I'm not too sure I've missed all that much since (correct me if I'm wrong, though you'll be waiting a while for an answer again if it's so). The suggestion doesn't necessarily beg a solution, it begs a view. That's pretty much mine FWIW.

Permabear

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oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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It was off-topic, uncalled-for, and yes, it was a personal attack on other (unspecified) posters. He broke the rules.

Permabear

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Permabear

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Boston

I think it is idealist to think anything but a tiny minority of people act out of anything like an ethical stance. And I respect that thats how you operate and I have my own set of principles (Which are almost completely unfathomable) but people aren't like that in general.

5starpool

The_Minister wrote: »

Not helpful.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Obviously it wasn't meant to be helpful. It was conveying my amazement that it takes something this small to drive someone to stop posting on boards. Sorry for the confusion.

I could extend it to several more of the recent "I'm not posting on boards anymore" decisions by prominent posters, most of which are either for small reasons in the grand scheme of things, or else as a pointless protest because they think the spirit of the place is not what it was and not what they want it to be. I don't understand the need for announcements that you aren't posting anymore, just stop posting if you don't like it, same as anything else. This doesn't just apply to the lad in this thread btw.