Should threads discussing moderation be allowed

Well, I'm just adding my views. Nothing's wrong with that.

That depends on the reader to make that judgement. The particular user has the same right of airing her views like you and me.

Original post by Idle

Mods are not allowed to slate users, other mods can see the warnings and the posts that were warned to see if it was justified.

You'd be surprised Idle.

But lets not talk about that; that's breaking the rule.

Reply 102

I'm adding my views (supporting or rejecting the particular respond thread).
As this is a forum, anyone can add in their views.

Since that's clear, I won't be discussing the issue anymore.

Reply 103

Mad Vlad

Original post by kka25

False.

The history of science alone has shown many times how thousands of theories/principles/ideas/scientific facts/empirical evidence verified or agreed by thousands of people can be completely wrong. Now with a bunch of random volunteers on a site reading stuff they probably wouldn't understand? Yeah, that would make the above less unlikely wouldn't it?
So this reasoning of yours is invalid.

Hence "improbability". The mod team is comprised of a cross section of academic ability background, age, experience, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, personal interests and preferences. Everyone on the team can (and are encouraged to) have their input on these things. We can only work from the evidence presented to us. We're not infallible.

It goes both ways FYI.

As Idle has stated, this doesn't happen and frankly, it couldn't happen without someone else on the mod team seeing it.

Reply 104

Original post by Mad Vlad

Hence "improbability".

Your original post was:

Original post by Mad Vlad

You're really suggesting that nobody in a pool of 70 diverse people will understand why you think someone is offensive? That's a statistical improbability

By definition:

Improbable: "Unlikely to take place or be true."

In writing, you've assumed as well as claimed, that this is unlikely to happen, but it most certainly will happen since these 70 "diverse" people are not enough to represent anything (no statistical validity from your part). Furthermore, they are nonprofessionals (simply volunteers), some of whom have not finished their education, thus mistakes will definitely happen.

Therefore, accountability is certainly very important since there is absolutely no assurance that any of the mods could make the right step of action; in a logical sense, the probability of they getting it wrong is higher since decisions are made based on their own (limited) views on any raised matter. We have to accept this since this is factual.

In order to ensure that, the consumers/registered members must know clearly and in a nonpatronizing way why they are given so and so to avoid errors and misunderstanding from the mods.

Users are humans; they have feelings too. They won't like it if suddenly you give them warnings without (clear or meaningful) reason(s).
What if the user(s) tries to defend themselves in the AAM subforum but the mod(s) simply rudely replied and asked them to "take it or leave it" or "they are too tired/busy" so that's why they are acting up or "these sort of things are too common"? How does that justify the user's grievance? How would this justify professional behaviour? If one is "too busy"/"too tired"/"too annoyed"/"too common so won't be bothered", then I think the best way is to leave the moderator post and give it to someone who's more able to perform the task, or penalized the mod(s) for not doing their task properly and make the punishment public to ensure to the users that their grievance has been taken seriously. If you can do to this to the normal users (making the punishment public), then the moderators should not get any special treatment. As you said, they are members (first) as well.
Also, if this were to be made public, the other users can see the patterns of (erroneous) warnings/tasks that the particular mod is making, thus other users can report the mod's errors/peculiar behaviour.

The mod team is comprised of a cross section of academic ability background, age, experience, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, personal interests and preferences. Everyone on the team can (and are encouraged to) have their input on these things. We can only work from the evidence presented to us. We're not infallible.

These demographic data of yours are very brief; by the above post, you have given somewhat of a basic (and very unclear) demographic of the mods. The question now becomes, are they equally distributed?; do their views represent the population's views?; how do you ensure that their views are not bias, hence wouldn't lead to wrongful decision(s)?
In terms of usefulness, the post you gave above is not useful.

Obviously you're not infallible but it seems that accountability is not clear on TSR.

In real life, whoever signed a warning (letter) to someone on a particular (professional) working system, their name(s) will be written on the bottom of the letter to indicate they are the ones who issued the warnings. If there's a need to file a grievance by the person who received the letter (feeling of unfairness, distrust, bullying, unprofessional behaviour, favoritism, etc from the people who wrote the letter), then the person who received the letter can defend and inform their side of the story; there's no indication of this on TSR.

As Idle has stated, this doesn't happen and frankly, it couldn't happen without someone else on the mod team seeing it.

This is a strong statement. If this doesn't happen, then quite frankly, threads like these wouldn't be created would it?

The creation of this thread has shown how unhappy/distrustful (some) of the TSR users with (some of) the TSR mods.

Volunteers are volunteers. I have been a volunteer myself and I don't go around asserting myself to the public to be correct (all the time) or, showing that I know from top to bottom how are particular system work or, shouting at the person that I intended to serve/work with or, I find their post or work "annoying", etc. On the contrary, I tend to show more humility since I'm simply just a "volunteer"; also it's my job/responsibility, so there's no room for me to complain to the customer/person/people that I worked with. Lastly, I don't own the particular place I worked/volunteered with so I would (have to) always make sure that my attitude is appropriate (all the time).

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 105

Original post by kka25

In order to ensure that, the consumers/registered members must know clearly and in a nonpatronizing way why they are given so and so to avoid errors and misunderstanding from the mods.

We already try to do this with the warning comments you see in the warning PM (though as Illusionary mentioned earlier, we're aware that the current PMs aren't perfect and we're in the process of improving them). If you still don't fully understand then can post in AAM where the mod who gave the warning will reply to explain further.

Users are humans; they have feelings too. They won't like it if suddenly you give them warnings without (clear or meaningful) reason(s).
What if the user(s) tries to defend themselves in the AAM subforum but the mod(s) simply rudely replied and asked them to "take it or leave it" or "they are too tired/busy" so that's why they are acting up or "these sort of things are too common"? How does that justify the user's grievance? How would this justify professional behaviour? If one is "too busy"/"too tired"/"too annoyed"/"too common so won't be bothered", then I think the best way is to leave the moderator post and give it to someone who's more able to perform the task, or penalized the mod(s) for not doing their task properly and make the punishment public to ensure to the users that their grievance has been taken seriously.

In short, replies like that don't happen. We're not going to just say "I can't be bothered to explain it to you" and leave it at that.

But let's entertain the idea and say that it did. In the first instance, that is something that the relevant section leader would then deal with. If you still didn't feel it was dealt with properly then you can email admin. We are already accountable - firstly to the section leaders, and above them, to admin.

If you can do to this to the normal users (making the punishment public), then the moderators should not get any special treatment. As you said, they are members (first) as well.
Also, if this were to be made public, the other users can see the patterns of (erroneous) warnings/tasks that the particular mod is making, thus other users can report the mod's errors/peculiar behaviour.

But we don't do this to normal users (making punishments public), so I don't really follow saying "moderators should not get any special treatment" when by dealing with any problems in private, it's already dealt with in the same manner as it would be for someone who isn't a mod.

I'm also not sure I see the logic in improving confidence in the mod team by publicly naming and shaming those who you don't feel have done a good enough job. If an employee at a company messes up then it's up to their manager to deal with it, they're not going to send out a press release to all their customers to let them pass judgement instead, or send an internal email to every employee.

These demographic data of yours are very brief; by the above post, you have given somewhat of a basic (and very unclear) demographic of the mods. The question now becomes, are they equally distributed?;

It's not going to be a 100% perfect random sample, no, but unless you want to have a vastly increased number of mods that's just not going to be possible.

do their views represent the population's views?;

For the most part, yes, I'd think so, since ultimately we're part of the population as well.

how do you ensure that their views are not bias, hence wouldn't lead to wrongful decision(s)?

Again, by being accountable to section leaders / admin. If you feel a wrongful decision has been made then you can go to the next person up in the chain.

Obviously you're not infallible but it seems that accountability is not clear on TSR.

Mods -> Section leaders -> Admin. We're all accountable to the people a step up in the hierarchy.

In real life, whoever signed a warning (letter) to someone on a particular (professional) working system, their name(s) will be written on the bottom of the letter to indicate they are the ones who issued the warnings. If there's a need to file a grievance by the person who received the letter (feeling of unfairness, distrust, bullying, unprofessional behaviour, favoritism, etc from the people who wrote the letter), then the person who received the letter can defend and inform their side of the story; there's no indication of this on TSR.

If you want to dispute a warning you can come to AAM and in the first instance the mod who gave the warning will be the one who replied. If you don't dispute the warning then I'm not sure why it really matters exactly who gave it?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 106

A Cat

3

Sometimes the reasoning is too ****ing arbitrary and the moderator who makes the decision is being overly harsh.... sometimes.

Reply 107

So you mean something on this page, or a page linked to from it, outlining "What do I do if I don't understand or disagree with my warning"? On one hand that strikes me as an entirely reasonable thing to put there. On the other hand, the warning PM already points you to the first step in the process (posting in AAM) and if you do that and still aren't happy with the response then we'll tell you how to take it a step up the hierarchy to section leaders / admin. The vast majority of disputes in AAM can be cleared up by the mod who gave the warning in the first place, so I'd be a little concerned that it would lead to people trying to skip the one or two earlier stages of the process and just going straight to emailing admin. That would just create extra work all round.

Anyway, not saying it's a bad idea by any means, but I'd have one or two reservations about it.

Reply 108

rmhumphries

17

Original post by Potally_Tissed

So you mean something on this page, or a page linked to from it, outlining "What do I do if I don't understand or disagree with my warning"? On one hand that strikes me as an entirely reasonable thing to put there. On the other hand, the warning PM already points you to the first step in the process (posting in AAM) and if you do that and still aren't happy with the response then we'll tell you how to take it a step up the hierarchy to section leaders / admin. The vast majority of disputes in AAM can be cleared up by the mod who gave the warning in the first place, so I'd be a little concerned that it would lead to people trying to skip the one or two earlier stages of the process and just going straight to emailing admin. That would just create extra work all round.

Anyway, not saying it's a bad idea by any means, but I'd have one or two reservations about it.

Are you not trying to make the warning PM simpler though? Linking to an image/flowchart explaining the whole process may help add more information, without adding more to the actual PM itself.

In regards to going straight to e-mailing the admin - the option is already there; there are a couple of admin address and the admin's can always receive PMs. Possibly say that the only way to raise it to the admin level is by asking in your AASM thread, which then gets stuck with an 'admin attention' label; as such there is no (easy) was for people bypassing the process - as they will use one thread, which gets moved / re-labelled as needed.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 109

Original post by rmhumphries

Are you not trying to make the warning PM simpler though? Linking to an image/flowchart explaining the whole process may help add more information, without adding more to the actual PM itself.

rmhumphries has basically said what I was going to suggest, that it might make more sense to make that part clearer via the warning PM or something linked to from it :yes:

"If you wish to discuss this warning, please post in the Ask A Moderator forum. You can read more about how this will be dealt with *here*" - something like that?

Reply 110

If you're banned then you can't see the PM which would tell you what to do if you're banned. Though that's a separate point - if you're banned we allow you to use a different account provided it is only to post in AAM, but I don't think that's stated in any of the FAQs or anything at the moment. Would make sense to mention it somewhere, and it would probably fit in with your flowchart idea or could at least go on the same page.

Reply 111

Original post by Potally_Tissed

We already try to do this with the warning comments you see in the warning PM (though as Illusionary mentioned earlier, we're aware that the current PMs aren't perfect and we're in the process of improving them). If you still don't fully understand then can post in AAM where the mod who gave the warning will reply to explain further.

In short, replies like that don't happen. We're not going to just say "I can't be bothered to explain it to you" and leave it at that.

You'd be surprised.

But we don't do this to normal users (making punishments public), so I don't really follow saying "moderators should not get any special treatment" when by dealing with any problems in private, it's already dealt with in the same manner as it would be for someone who isn't a mod.

What I meant was the warnings you gave to the average users; mods should be getting something similar as well to show actions have been taken.

I'm also not sure I see the logic in improving confidence in the mod team by publicly naming and shaming those who you don't feel have done a good enough job. If an employee at a company messes up then it's up to their manager to deal with it, they're not going to send out a press release to all their customers to let them pass judgement instead, or send an internal email to every employee.

If that's the case then remove the TSR public warnings and just show them to the users.
Regarding the employees, those things do happen.

It's not going to be a 100% perfect random sample, no, but unless you want to have a vastly increased number of mods that's just not going to be possible.

That is not even random sampling. There's no sampling calculation on his "statistical" analysis. At best, he was just saying some random information about the population (unclear demographic) without any statistical relevance. That's why I said that particular post has no used.

For the most part, yes, I'd think so, since ultimately we're part of the population as well.

No it's not since no (random) sampling was calculated, thus no data were actually "representative" of "anything".

We'll stop about the statistical analysis because I've already made my point.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 112

sugar-n-spice

OP

1

This is good, maybe add more consistent punishments too, rather than 10 points for spamming one day and just an alert another.

Reply 113

Original post by kka25

You'd be surprised.

I've seen rather a lot of AAM threads, so I doubt it :tongue:

What I meant was the warnings you gave to the average users; mods should be getting something similar as well to show actions have been taken.

Ah I see. Though I'd be against that because...

If that's the case then remove the TSR public warnings and just show them to the users.

...this has been suggested before and my personal opinion is that it's a good idea :yes:

Regarding the employees, those things do happen.

It's not exactly the norm, and again, my opinion is that such things are far better dealt with in private.

That is not even random sampling. There's no sampling calculation on his "statistical" analysis. At best, he was just saying some random information about the population (unclear demographic) without any statistical relevance. That's why I said that particular post has no used.

No it's not since no (random) sampling was calculated, thus no data were actually "representative" of "anything".

We'll stop about the statistical analysis because I've already made my point.

This feels like bit of a dead end. I can't see that we're about to remove the entire mod team and get 60 replacements who have been chosen by drawing random lots, so even if you do feel that we're not sufficiently representative of the userbase as a whole I'm not sure what you'd have us to do address that. Unless I've misunderstood and that's not really something that concerns you and you were simply disputing whether or not we are representative.

Reply 114

Original post by Potally_Tissed

I've seen rather a lot of AAM threads, so I doubt it :tongue:

Well, I've seen/read some things too :tongue:

Ah I see. Though I'd be against that because...

...this has been suggested before and my personal opinion is that it's a good idea :yes:

It's not exactly the norm, and again, my opinion is that such things are far better dealt with in private.

I share the same opinion, but it does happen :pinch:

This feels like bit of a dead end. I can't see that we're about to remove the entire mod team and get 60 replacements who have been chosen by drawing random lots, so even if you do feel that we're not sufficiently representative of the userbase as a whole I'm not sure what you'd have us to do address that. Unless I've misunderstood and that's not really something that concerns you and you were simply disputing whether or not we are representative.

Urm... no.

Never mind! It's ok. Just leave it be :wink:

Reply 115

Motorbiker

21

Original post by kka25

You'd be surprised.

If you get replies like that in AAM then post in AASL or report the post?

I've never seen anyone reply like that in AAM...

Often mods will end up reading others threads when asked for a second opinion etc so we see lots of AAM all the time and don't see stuff like that.

Original post by sugar-n-spice

This is good, maybe add more consistent punishments too, rather than 10 points for spamming one day and just an alert another.

For a certain user yea but for different users different punishments are applicable.

A new user who doesn't know the rules gets an alert whereas an older user who has broken this rule 20 times and hasn't learnt the lesson deserves a stricter penalty.

Reply 116

n00

14

Original post by Drewski

But surely it's only of use if you're actually going to question them, otherwise it's useless information?

Mods make mistakes, would be nice to know who they are when they do incase they repeat it.

Reply 117

username1024541

10

I don't see the benefit of seeing which moderater warned you, because that seems to be like it would only result in angry attacks on the mod in question, but I wish the message would identify exactly *which* part of the poster's message was the problem by quoting the exact issue. E.g " you posted this link" or "said this word/phrase"

I've only been warned once, but since I've seen both the potential "problems" said ever-so-frequently on this thread (can I not say what it was?) so I wasn't entirely aware what the issue was - it was a little vague. It'd be nice to have a clearer definition aha, because if I knew *which* part of my message was the problem, I could act accordingly!

Edit: I didn't know this AAM thing existed before I read this thread oops, how did I not read that on the warning message hahaha

but either way, it'd be good to just have the exact offending material highlighted, rather than having to post in there just to find out

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 118

Drewski