Author: James Robertson
Date: 22:39:18 07/23/99
Go up one level in this thread
On July 24, 1999 at 00:30:09, KarinsDad wrote: >On July 23, 1999 at 19:43:23, Amir Ban wrote: > >[snip] >> >>As a former moderator I take credit for inventing the "on-duty" procedure. When >>I was lobbying for it, I described it to my fellow moderators (Don Dailey & >>Bruce Moreland) in these terms: >> >>Having one moderator on duty doesn't mean that he has all the power. The >>principle of majority decision still holds. The moderator on duty acts as a sort >>of chairman, decides the agenda, and asks the two others to vote on stuff. He >>can act alone only in cases that are too simple to bother the others, or have >>already been discussed by the moderators and the action is what was agreed >>should be taken in such a case. IN ANY CASE, if the moderator on duty already >>knows of a dissenting opinion by another moderator, he's not allowed to act >>alone and must get the opinion of the third moderator. >> >>This was my understanding of the rules, and they were followed with no >>exceptions that I can remember. > >These were your rules. This is the first I have heard of them. Personally, I >think that they are a fine set of rules with the exception of when a post is >just plain bad and should be deleted immediately, regardless of circumstances. > >> >>It doesn't seem the present moderators have worked out any such procedures, or >>at least that's my impression from the posts in this thread. If they were >>following the procedures set above, I would consider Bruce's action to be >>illegal, since he should have assumed that Fernando, by posting what he did, >>disagrees with him, and he had to resort to majority vote. > >As I said, this is the first I have heard of these rules. What we had done is >ask if the previous moderators had some guidelines and we got some. We forwarded >them around, only two of them got discussed as potential drops, and that was it. >Nobody wrote up a formal set of guidelines. The two that got discussed were not >allowing moderation Emails to be posted and having a procedure to remove a rogue >moderator. Neither of these seemed to be appealing to everyone. The guideline on >having one moderator delete on his own authority was never discussed by anyone >(Fernando included). I took it to mean that we all basically agreed that it and >the other guidelines were more or less fine. > >> >>I think Bruce showed very poor judgement here. His action would not deserve much >>comment against an ordinary member, and would probably be perfectly justified, >>but for the moderators to start censoring each other does not make sense, for >>reasons that have nothing to do with the charter. What we have now can be called >>a constitutional crisis. > >I disagree. Bruce showed good judgement. He weighed the worthlessness of the >post and the chance of it creating controversy versus Fernando's desire to have >it posted. Nobody is clairvoyant enough to figure out that Fernando would take >it so hard. Quite frankly, I was shocked that he did. If one of my worthless >posts would have been deleted, I would have said, "Oh well.". Remember that for Fernando it is not just one worthless post. It represents the _kind_ of post he would like to post here, and he planned to post a lot more than just one. James > >Let's just examine for a moment what we are talking about. We are not talking >about an opinion of which engine is stronger. We are not talking about even a >borderline post such as the FIDE ratings. We are talking about a joke and a >potentially offensive one at that. > >I think you give the moderators too much power when you say they are not subject >to the same set of rules as everyone else. > >> >>Experience shows that the post of moderator needs quite a bit of talent for >>politics and diplomacy. I hope the voters will remember this next time. >> >>Amir > >KarinsDad :)
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