Apparent change in moderation policies

astrofool

Note I use the word "apparent" as I don't believe this is really the case but is down to the new moderation tools and lack of hands on deck to moderate as usual, but I thought I'd check what I'm 90% sure of :)

Typically (and this usually held true on the old site), if reporting a post, I'd wait 24 hours and see if it was acted upon and if it was, fine and if it wasn't, assume that poster/behaviour was OK and engage in replies and discussion again, I get the feeling that's not the case anymore.

My fear is that posts are getting reported, not getting acted upon due to lack of tooling/people, then a few days later it gets caught up and everyone responding gets caught up in it with warnings/bans etc. rather than just the perpetrator.

Hopefully the mods bear this in mind when getting the time to respond eventually (or I've got it all wrong and moderation is more lax now :), there's a few threads on the COVID forum that have veered wildy off topic the last few days and I'm worried Beasty will have an aneurism when he catches up with it 😀

Beasty

All reports in Current Affairs and Coronavirus Forums are reviewed either by me or one of the other mods. As I have indicated elsewhere we do have limited modding resources following the change and limits on mod (and indeed Admin) powers. However I can assure you nothing is being missed in either of those two forums, although it can be a couple of days (and a few weeks ago there was an extended period when I was not modding as I was in hospital, but reports were caught up within a couple of days of me getting home).

TBH though throughout the life of the Coronavirus forum I have probably been the most active mod. My recovery is meaning I typically have an hour (or two, or three, or four) in the evening to catch up with things

One very relevant factor though is when we are under such pressures it can be more difficult to work through the build up to certain "escalations". We are much more reliant on reports to alert us to posts that may have triggered reactions. I typically try and work through reports on a first in first out basis to at least give me a bit of a feel for issues that may be escalating

Ultimately though we are in a situation where priorities are to try and improve user experiences, meaning getting some of the mod capabilities are quite low down on the list. As an Admin I do at least have a few more powers that give me more capability particularly when dealing with some of the more posters who cause issue on a more regular basis

Opened this thread hoping OP was noting a change in the sense of a move towards competence or consistency.

Note he says it's getting even worse. Not wholly surprised.