A Moderate Request for Our Beloved Moderators

Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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May 7, 2016
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Half Fast
Dear Mods,

From time to time you find it necessary to lock a thread. I know this is done with careful consideration and I realize it may be necessary. I would, however, like to request that when you do so, you make a final post to the thread stating the reason for the lock. It would help us all learn how to interpret the ROC better, especially if in your final post you explain which rule(s) was violated and why. Too often a thread gets locked with no explanation whatsoever.

Humbly submitted with love and kindness for all.
 
Half Fast said:
Dear Mods,

From time to time you find it necessary to lock a thread. I know this is done with careful consideration and I realize it may be necessary. I would, however, like to request that when you do so, you make a final post to the thread stating the reason for the lock. It would help us all learn how to interpret the ROC better, especially if in your final post you explain which rule(s) was violated and why. Too often a thread gets locked with no explanation whatsoever.

Humbly submitted with love and kindness for all.
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Like your mom told you when you asked her. “because I said so”
 
I think it was common decency...just a hunch. That's usually not in a rule book.
 
Half Fast said:
You seem to be referring to some specific thread. My request is generic, relating to all locks.
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True...it was the most recent lock I noticed, about the suicide. My attention span is too short to cover all the (sub)forums. But I'll be happy to throw rocks at the mods if that will help :biggrin:
 
Piperonca said:
True...it was the most recent lock I noticed, about the suicide. My attention span is too short to cover all the (sub)forums. But I'll be happy to throw rocks at the mods if that will help :biggrin:
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I have no intention to throw rocks. I just think those being moderated should understand the moderation decisions if the forum is to improve.

Seems pretty basic, but what do I know?
 
That one in particular didn't seem like it had crossed the line to me.

It was certainly making a bee-line for it though ;)

I do like the idea of a "here's why we can't have nice things" message when they incarcerate a thread.
 
It's hard to work towards solutions for serious problems (like suicide) when you can't actually drill down to discussing root causes or other contributing factors without potentially getting a thread locked. Which ironically relates to this topic, too. Gotta bit thick skinned-enough to take a correction, or give one, without destroying the harmony of the board. If it was my fault that that last thread got locked, I can handle it being said so, and I apologize, even though I was genuinely trying to avoid violating the ROC. If not, it definitely seems odd that we can't have a simple: "thread locked for point 1 of the ROC" / offending message deleted type of deal.
 
To be clear: my request in this thread is not about any particular lock, nor am I voicing any disagreement at all about any lock decisions. I merely think that posting the reasoning behind a lock would help us make better decisions about our postings.
 
Half Fast said:
To be clear: my request in this thread is not about any particular lock, nor am I voicing any disagreement at all about any lock decisions. I merely think that posting the reasoning behind a lock would help us make better decisions about our postings.
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It seems like a very reasonable request.
 
I think 4chan actually got this right by adding the [this user was warned for this post] and [this user was banned for this post] footer on the posts.

I also think they got it right by posting IP address and country of IP origin. I know VPNs are a thing, but... helps sniff out fish early in a process if you know you're on the hotline to Lagos. :)
 
I don't know how things work these days, but back when I was on the Management Council, we did not lock anything or take any action unless multiple management council members explicitly approved the action. The bad part was that we were slow to lock things. The good part was that we were slow to lock things. I called it the Don Chevy rule.
 
As a member of the MC, I want you to know that I hear you. One of the changes I've asked the MC to try to be aware of is letting people know more about when things are moderated in any form (with the exception of outright spam problems).

Sometimes if the wheels appear to be coming off a thread, we'll lock it temporarily to cool things off why we huddle amongst ourselves to figure out what we should do.
 
Except in egregious cases, unilateral action remains frowned upon.

Transparency and timely feedback are the goals, but can be challenging to reach with multiple volunteers across multiple time zones, all with competing obligations.

We take the RoC seriously and strive to apply them uniformly. Gray areas take longer.

So, as Ron said, some time can elapse between a lock, discussion, consensus, and action.

As ever, the MC's early warning system is user reports. Or, feel free to PM any of us.

GeorgeC,
speaking for himself
 
GeorgeC said:
Except in egregious cases, unilateral action remains frowned upon.

Transparency and timely feedback are the goals, but can be challenging to reach with multiple volunteers across multiple time zones, all with competing obligations.

We take the RoC seriously and strive to apply them uniformly. Gray areas take longer.

So, as Ron said, some time can elapse between a lock, discussion, consensus, and action.

As ever, the MC's early warning system is user reports. Or, feel free to PM any of us.

GeorgeC,
speaking for himself
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Understood, but once the decision has been made to lock a thread, how about posting the reason(s) as a final post? Maybe point out the particular rule?

Right now, it’s like a CFI refusing to solo a student without saying what needs fixing. “Bad student! No solo!” doesn’t help much.
 
George hit the nail on the head. We don’t unilaterally make decisions and we do our best to apply the RoC fairly across the board, but it’s impossible to cover every situation that might arise within the RoC, so we have to go with our gut sometimes; but that doesn’t happen often and when it does, we try to apply the most appropriate RoC violation. As @jesse said, it still takes multiple votes to create an action.

As far as a public comment on closed threads, I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but it’s borderline with our rule that we don’t discuss bans or warnings publicly, so it might just depend what the reason for the thread lock was.
 
RyanB said:
As far as a public comment on closed threads,
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I’m not asking for comment or discussion, merely explanation. “Thread locked due to personal attacks prohibited under ROC.” “Thread locked due to political discussion prohibited by rule # xx.” Or whatever.


RyanB said:
...we have to go with our gut sometimes; but that doesn’t happen often and when it does, we try to apply the most appropriate RoC violation.
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Perfectly fine, but please explain that when the circumstance occurs.

We members can’t correct our mistakes if we don’t know what they are.

Am I making an unreasonable request?
 
I’m ok with Mods taking action without notification.

I say this b/c after moderating a few groups and listserves, I know the level of time and effort that goes into following threads, then discussing them with participants and co-moderators, and then after the lock, anyone who thinks their 1stA has been violated or how ‘some other person didn’t get their thread locked’.
Frankly it’s emotionally exhausting and most of us have jobs that it distracts us from.

I’d go with clear, posted rules; close or remove threads as needed; kick off anyone that is a repeat offender - we’ll get the idea of how the site works through observation.
No need to constantly defend yourself or expend enormous energies keeping things on track. Not like mods are overpaid.
 
One thing about explaining the reasons is I believe that sometimes an offending post (or posts) might be deleted. So an explanation might be confusing, unless you happen to see the post prior to its deletion
 
Without an explanation it is like Instagram. You’ve been banned for going against our community guidelines. What is that you ask? Our community guidelines. No one knows what that is either.

It’s distasteful when you can not communicate the issue at hand to have an understanding, especially with a regular poster. After all this forum has no value without its contributors, us.
 
How can one say moderate and moderators in one breath? .....isn't that like a double negative? :D
 
Call me crazy but maybe we should be finding ways to reduce the workload on the unpaid volunteers instead of asking for new work out of them?

I vote Half Fast be the one who reviews and approves the new user signups. Any scammers/spammers who get through = a 1 day ban so he can learn to get better at it.
 
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