Author: James B. Shearer
Date: 16:24:33 11/18/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 18, 1998 at 05:26:06, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>Don made some mention in email today about meaning to write an announcement and
>forgetting, but I'm not sure about the specifics of what he intended to do or
>whether he intends to do anything anymore.
I had assumed such decisions were made by a concensus among the
moderators. It appears this is not the case. This appears undesirable to me
for several reasons. Will we see Thorsten flitting in and out depending on
which moderator is "on call"?
Bruce Moreland continued (in part):
>The objection raised in your post is exactly why I think that there should be
>some means of announcing stuff, it is creepy when people or posts just
>disappear.
Announcing stuff also makes the moderators more accountable. I believe
all moderation actions should be logged in some way for this reason. Btw this
would mean no private warnings.
Bruce Moreland continued (in part):
>There seem to be at least a few people who are concerned that action taken by
>moderators is arbitrary, and along with this perhaps most of these people want
>to try to codify things.
I would like to see the moderators treat their friends the same way as
their enemies when it comes to moderation decisions. Codifying things is one
way of encouraging this.
Bruce Moreland continued:
>2) A determined sequence of punishments allows a determined troublemaker the
>opportunity to manipulate the system by being massively disruptive a few times
>and being punished only lightly, and more cause to argue about technicalities.
I don't see this if the punishments are set up correctly. Suppose you
could suspend posting privileges for periods of 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks
or a month depending on the seriousness of the offense. I doubt the typical
troublemaker is patient enough to come back every month just to get suspended
again.
Bruce Moreland continued:
>3) A determined sequence of punishements can force the moderators to do the
>wrong thing. There are some of you that absolutely positively hate Bob. Bob
>has a temper and when he is poked (or thinks he is poked) sometimes he pokes
>back pretty hard. He tends to poke people who are about to be kicked out, but
>haven't been kicked out yet. This has happened perhaps a half dozen times in
>the last year, in some tremendously huge number of Bob posts. I can guarantee
>you that if we had a determined sequence of punishments that in every one of
>these cases the aggrieved party would have demanded that the moderators punish
>Bob, when frankly the best thing to do in these cases is to just leave Bob
>alone. On the other hand, we had some guy register here and his very very first
>post was titled "Fuck you", and the complete and unabridged content of the post
>was "No really, fuck you". That guy got his post and his account deleted, after
>zero warnings and zero cards, and that's what should have happened, rather than
>some dorky, "Please mind your manners", form letter. I think that the
>moderators should be given some latitude to figure out what to do about people
>who mess up, and that they if somebody has demonstrated even remotely that they
>are here to learn and teach and aren't here to specifically cause trouble, they
>should be treated a lot closer to the way Bob is treated than the way the "No
>really, fuck you" guy was.
Well, I don't see what would be so bad about suspending Bob's posting
privileges for 1 day every time he (or anyone else) makes an unacceptable post
(whether or not he was baited). If you are worried he will get mad and quit in
a huff if he receives any sanction whatever, no matter how mild, then I think he
shouldn't really be posting here.
James B. Shearer
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