Moderator Performance (was Mods not Gods)

coletti

Overheal wrote: »

Mods are not exactly given free reign.

No one is given completely free reign, but moderators can , sometimes, become self important and decide to do more than just moderate.

For example, someone posted a reasonable and reasonably interesting post in one of the politics threads, and the response from the moderator was to close the whole thread with the words "Please don't dig up old threads like this. If you have something sufficiently new to say, you can start a new thread. In this case, though, your starting material is too thin for a new thread either."

Quite why we are not allowed to add to an existing thread seems unclear, and this moderator is also warning the poster that he is also not allowed to start a new thread on the subject. Even if others might find the subject interesting, this particular moderator appears to believe that his duties extend to preventing them from a discussion on the grounds that he, personally, might not find it interesting.

That's not moderation, and deciding what others are allowed talk about (so long as its relevant to the subject) is not moderation, but more self important authoritarian control.

Wibbs

Well there is a general rule of not reviving zombie threads and I would agree. It's much better to kick off a new fresh one. I can see how it can happen though if you find the thread subject through google or some such.

As far as moderating whats interesting or not, that I don't agree with. I dont know the whys of the example you gave and there may well be good reason, but if a thread subject is not likely to cause strife, or isnt a rehash of a recent thread that was locked because of strife, or just going in circles and disrupting the forum, then I really don't see what biz it is of any moderator to decide it's interest to the community. I have seen that happen before too and with certain mod styles, but it's pretty rare. The vast majority of threads are closed for pretty good reasons from what Ive seen anyway.