Hey folks,
I’m seeing a lot of chatter about rules and insults and mods, oh my. And I know I am a contributor to those discussions as well, so I thought I’d toss in my two cents, or rather, my three points:
- People expect better from moderators when they post as CMs
- People will always walk over the line if they are used to playing close to it
- People will always complain about unbalanced moderation, whether it exists or not
For the first point, I think you all do an admirable job of pushing one another to be good at this. That doesn’t mean that it works perfectly, and some of you are easier to goad into breaking your own rules than others. There is a significant reaction from people when those with power abuse their own rules, but this is a forum, not every day life, so people (myself included) could stand to take it a bit less seriously. Still, be aware that when a mod and a CM are in a conversation, and the mod breaks a lot of rules that later the CM is zapped for, it will look like abuse.
For the second point, I think most of us need to realize that playing with fire risks being burnt. We all should be more accepting of getting zapped when we play on the line, and I’m glad the Den is there for disputes when the line is less clear. But if there is a thread which is just two people playing with the line and adding nothing to the article discussion, I think that’s a waste of space and should be deletable. And yes, for the third time, that includes threads I am a part of.
For the third part, I think we’ve seen way too many posts about how moderators are not balanced, get away with stuff, etc. And I think that’s a little hypocritical, given how much CMs get away with. This is the counterpoint to the 1st point; as much as we hold mods up to a higher standard, we also don’t give them the leeway we expect to get away with ourselves. My suggestions here is to focus on the action, not the badge, when complaining about a mod.
TLDR:
- Be careful when moderating a discussion between a mod and a CM that you use the same standards
- Feel free to delete entire threads which devolve into brinksmanship with insults
- CMs, calm the f down about the badge and focus on the actions you feel are over the line and not conducive to a discussion space.